Positioning AI because the central pillar of farm coverage, analysis and funding structure on the AI4Agri 2026 Summit in Mumbai, Union Minister of Science and Generation and Earth Sciences, Dr. Jitendra Singh stated on Sunday that India’s subsequent agricultural revolution will probably be pushed through synthetic intelligence.
Addressing the inaugural consultation of the “International Convention on AI in Agriculture and Investor Summit 2026” in Mumbai, the Minister stated AI provides, for the primary time, scalable answers to structural demanding situations that experience lengthy constrained farm productiveness – erratic climate, knowledge asymmetry and fragmented markets. “ What AI provides isn’t a brand new prognosis. It provides, in spite of everything, a prescription that may scale,” he stated, noting that even a ten% productiveness acquire for the 600 million farmers around the International South would quantity to what he described as the only biggest poverty-reduction alternative of the century .
Framing agriculture as a strategic sector somewhat than a legacy one, Dr. Jitendra Singh related the AI push to the ₹10,372-crore India AI Challenge, which is development sovereign compute capability, datasets and startup infrastructure at scale . He highlighted BharatGen, India’s government-owned huge language type ecosystem, which has already launched “Agri Param”, a domain-specific agriculture type working in 22 Indian languages, enabling farmers to get right of entry to advisory fortify in their very own language. “That is AI that speaks to a farmer in Marathi, Bhojpuri or Kannada,” he stated, underscoring the significance of linguistic inclusion.
The Minister stated the Division of Science and Generation (DST) is supporting an open, interoperable India AI Open Stack to be sure that agri-AI answers evolved any place within the nation can plug into a countrywide framework. The Anusandhan Nationwide Analysis Basis is investment deep-tech and AI analysis in collaboration with IITs, IISc and ICAR, together with agriculture programs.
Dr Jitendra Singh pointed to drone and satellite tv for pc mapping this is already strengthening Soil Well being Playing cards and the Swamitva Challenge through offering verified land and soil information, and to investments in local weather intelligence the place Earth Sciences and AI are being built-in into early caution methods to lend a hand farmers “plan, now not panic”.
The Minister additionally made an immediate attraction to traders, describing agri-AI as “the biggest untapped productiveness marketplace on this planet,” and instructed affected person capital to again scalable platforms somewhat than remoted pilots. The luck of the convention, he stated, would now not be measured through displays however through what number of pilots turn into platforms and what number of farmers make higher selections a 12 months from now as a result of commitments made right here.
“The farmer does now not want AI merely for the sake of it. He wishes it to be helpful. Let that be our compass,” he stated, concluding with a choice for collaborative supply and reiterating India’s intent to behave now not as a recipient however as a co-architect of world agri-AI frameworks.
Learn extra newest information ! Read Now.
