Vishwakrupa Farmers’ Producer Company of Bahaduri Village in Nashik, Maharashtra has about 100 farmers who grow export quality grapes. Out of these, around 50 farmers have their farms in the same village and having seen other farmers benefit from Fyllo installations, they expressed interest in using the technology on their farms as well. Considering that these were smallholder farmers, who would not be able to afford individual units, Fyllo decided to innovate by deploying one Fyllo unit that could be shared by 50 farmers of the village.
For a small investment of INR 1100 per farmer, all 50 farmers are now able to get live weather conditions, weather prediction for the next 15 days, maintain farm records, get disease and pest predictions, spray timings, and evapotranspiration-based irrigation planning whereas otherwise, they relied on their past experiences to make such decisions.
Soon after the installation, Fyllo was able to send out early predictions of imminent attack of Downey Mildew, a disease that can be fatal to the crop, on three separate instances. Not only were the farmers alerted of the attacks, they were also given recommendations for the best schedule for pesticide spraying. This timely warning and recommended spraying schedule helped the farmers take preventive measures to save their crops while also avoiding unnecessary pesticide expenditure. By the end of the crop cycle, all farmers were able to generate, on an average, INR 10,000 more than the farmers who did not have access to Fyllo’s services, resulting in an ~10x return on their investment.
Inspired by this impact, Fyllo has now started a fertigation schedule based on soil tests, petiole and leaf tests for smallholder farmers. They have also launched a smaller irrigation unit for small farmers which is half the cost of Fyllo main unit and aim to reach out to more FPOs and smallholders in the near future.
Fyllo is one of the 25 semi-finalists of the Cisco Agri Challenge. Co-founded by Sumit Sheoran and Sudhanshu Rai, it aims to redefine India’s agriculture with digital innovation. Based on real-time farm data and insights, Fyllo helps farmers take precise decisions and increase farm productivity. To know more about the other semi-finalists, click here.
