The Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers
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Supporting Women Farmers Why and How
No full textWomen and men together make families and communities. There is very little, other than biologically ordained functions, that cannot be done with equal efficiency by both the sexes. Yet when it comes to agriculture, there is invariably the practice that women do the tasks with more drudgery or less recognition of the cost of labour. In addition childcare and care of domestic animals is commonly in the feminine domain as is cooking or processing of food. When we buy food items from stores that are commercially prepared and packaged, there is little differentiation that is possible to support women-led enterprises. Discussions and seminars around women empowerment are going to be just words till we put our money where the mouth is, that is to buy directly from women farmers and processing units run by women
ICAR-Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology, Mumbai Revolutionizing the Cotton Sector through Fibre and Biomass Technologies
No full textIoT-Enabled Solar Powered Temperature and Relative Humidity Monitoring System for Cold Storages
No full textThe manual oversight of environmental conditions within a cold storage facility proves laborious and prone to inaccuracies. In response, a cost-effective solution was developed and tested at the Pusa Farm Sun Fridge, aimed at providing real-time monitoring and recording of crucial parameters such as temperature and relative humidity (RH). The major components of the hardware are programmable microcontroller (Arduino UNO) with facility of data logging, DHT22 sensor (calibrated) to provide input to the datalogger/microcontroller; internet connectivity (using GSM mobile module SIM800A) to communicate the data to the web server ThingSpeak. The temperature and RH data of this IoT-based system was compared with data obtained from the Onset HOBO data logger (installed in the same cold storage) which is very expensive but widely recognized as the industry standard for indoor, outdoor, and underwater environmental monitoring. Validation against the industry-standard Onset HOBO data logger demonstrated strong correlation, with temperature and relative humidity achieving an R² value of 0.99 and 0.96, respectively, with data values closer to 1:1 line indicating very good performance of the developed system. The mean absolute error (MAE) was found to be 0.0033°C and 0.0004% for temperature and RH, respectively. The IoT based system was also experimented during the storage of potatoes. Notably, the system was powered by solar panels, ensuring uninterrupted operation even during power disruptions, with the added flexibility of adjusting data collection frequency through programming. Compact, portable, and notably cost-effective compared to traditional monitoring instruments, it holds promise for widespread adoption across various sectors. While the system currently focuses on monitoring, future iterations may incorporate control functionalities based on the gathered data
Post-harvest Management for Sustainable Food Security
No full textPost-harvest management plays a critical role in food security by minimizing the food waste and losses and by preserving food quality and safety for consumption. It also adds value by meeting the contemporary consumer’s demand, thereby augment the earnings of the farmers and food-processors. The recent developments in the post-harvest mechanization and automation tools including the use of sensors, artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML) based sorter, graders and the real time quality monitoring devices could be the game-changer in the coming years. However, various challenges involved in actual implementation of the advanced tools include the cost, feasibility, lack of adequately trained and skilled manpower, infrastructures, etc. Therefore, there is a need to develop the affordable indigenous technologies based on advanced scientific methods, easy operating strategies and economical infrastructure to address the above challenges and achieve a sustained food-security in India
