Vodafone India Foundation, Vodafone Idea Ltd’s (VIL) corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm, has entered into a partnership with Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia to deploy a smart agriculture solution to improve the productivity of farmers in India.

A pilot project is being conducted across 100 locations in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The solution will benefit more than 50,000 farmers in the region by enhancing their productivity and income, Vodafone Idea said in a statement.

The project aims to enhance the livelihoods of small farmers through sustainable farming approaches, deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT) solutions and by improving their access to information, using technology. This socially relevant project is in line with the government’s vision of inclusive growth, it said.

“Vi CSR is committed to leveraging technology strengths to create social impact through sustainable solutions. Smart crop management using Smart IoT- and AI-based solutions is transforming the prevalent agricultural practices into more intelligent ones enabling farmers with smart decision making and helping them improve production and crop quality through better utilisation of resources,” VIL Chief Regulatory and Corporate Affairs Officer P. Balaji said in the statement.

Vodafone Idea CSR has deployed Nokia’s Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING) and has roped in Solidaridad for field implementation.

As part of this project, more than 400 sensors have been deployed over 1,00,000 hectares of farmland to collect various data points which are then analysed by a cloud-based and localised Smart Agriculture app. The app provides local language support and weather forecast and irrigation management information. The sensors generate insights that will help to improve soy and cotton crop yields.

“Our mission for WING is to shape the future of agriculture and other industries, to create a smarter and more connected world. Together with Vi CSR, our managed service offering will help an initial 50,000 farmers and their families, to roll out the solution across India,” Ankur Bhan, Head of Nokia WING Business, Nokia, said.

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