Facial recognition for cows: how the search for tech unicorns is revolutionising India’s farms

Hundreds of start-up tech firms are offering everything from wearable health monitors for livestock to real-time agriscience data

The boom has excited investors and raised hopes of solutions to the industry’s more intractable problems – if the government is willing to help

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A facial recognition system for cows is just one of the ideas being tested in India’s booming agritech industry.

Published: 12:27pm, 3 Jan 2020Updated: 7:27pm, 16 Feb 2020

In India, agriculture remains a pillar of the economy, contributing about 18 per cent of GDP and employing more than half of the population. Yet the industry is highly fragmented, with outdated infrastructure and poor logistics contributing to an estimated US$13.1 billion post-harvest loss each year, according to Indian environment and science magazine Down to Earth.

But India’s booming agritech industry hopes to change all that, and has some novel ideas – wearable tech for livestock and facial recognition systems for cows among them – to do so.

Amid a wave of suicides by heavily indebted farmers and mass protests demanding better crop prices, drought relief and loan waivers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to increase farmers’ incomes and in 2018, launched the ‘DigiGaon’ or Digital Village programme, which aims to connect more than 100,000 villages to the internet so that residents can access services such as banking, health care and education online.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to increase farmers’ incomes. Photo: DPA

The prospect of greater rural connectivity appears to have inspired India’s private sector, and agricultural technology start-ups are now booming – in August, there were at least 450 nationwide, according to industry body the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), with that figure expected to increase by 25 per cent annually.

CropIn, a nine-year-old start-up based in Bangalore that has been backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is indicative of the trend. After somewhat troubled beginnings, it has grown 300 per cent in the past 15 months on the back of providing farmers with real-time agriscience data that they can access using their smartphones.

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Facial recognition for cows: how the search for tech unicorns is revolutionising India’s farms

Hundreds of start-up tech firms are offering everything from wearable health monitors for livestock to real-time agriscience data The boom has excited investors and raised hopes of solutions to the industry’s more intractable problems – if the government is willing to help

Hundreds of start-up tech firms are offering everything from wearable health monitors for livestock to real-time agriscience data

The boom has excited investors and raised hopes of solutions to the industry’s more intractable problems – if the government is willing to help