Benjamin Raja, a man from Tamil Nadu is making waves in agriculture after quitting his corporate job. His startup Farm Again is helping farmers have the best yield out of their land by making the perfect blend of elements like weather, geography and chemistry, with high precision and timing through the use of artificial intelligence.
He started the company in 2012 at Tirunelveli after quitting a high paying job. In an interview to The Better India, he was quoted saying that things changed for Benjamin when he met his school friend, John Augustin, a farmer from Salem, who was not happy with the yield and earning less than expected. John was using 1,000 litres of water for irrigation, while the requirement was only 100 litres which turned out to be the reason for the low yield and productivity.
Benjamin thought to increase the average yield in the country by five to ten times and help farmers make agriculture a viable.
He had then approached Rajaratnam Kanakarajan, a farmer who wanted to give away his 14-acre farmland for industrial or commercial use and provided him with farm precision techniques. The farm management technique worked so well for Rajaratnam that he invested in the company and became the director.
The farm management technique monitors parameters like – moisture level in the soil, water quantity needed and amount of fertilizer to be used among others. There are sensors placed that uses sunlight as source of energy and injects the necessary inputs as and when required. These sensors are connected to the user through a mobile network.
Benjamin says that a land area of half an acre, up to 30 km from the hub (or farmer’s home), can be covered in his technology. About 3,500 farmers across Tamil Nadu, covering over 4,000 acres of land, are benefitting with the technology at present, the founder of the startup says.
Speaking about the cost factor, Benjamin says automating an acre of the area with imported technology costs around ₹ 25 lakh. But, with indigenous equipment produced in India, the investment cost drops to ₹ 2.5 lakh.