In a significant move towards agricultural development and efficient information management, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoAFW) has launched Krishi 24/7—an AI tool for automated news monitoring and analysis.

Developed by Wadhwani AI to address the crucial need for a streamlined mechanism to identify and manage agricultural news articles—Krishi 24/7 has been developed with $1M support from Google.org.

It will prove invaluable to the Directorate of Extension Division under MoAFW, allowing them to identify pertinent news, generate timely alerts, and take swift actions that safeguard the interests of farmers while promoting sustainable agricultural growth through informed decision-making.

The AI tool boasts an impressive range of features, including its ability to scan news articles in multiple languages and translate them into English. Moreover, it extracts essential information from these articles, such as headlines, crop names, event types, dates, locations, severity, summaries, and source links. By doing so, it ensures that the ministry receives real-time updates on relevant events published across the web.

Krishi 24/7 offers several advantages, including providing timely updates on relevant agricultural events through targeted alerts to facilitate comprehension, analysis, and data-driven decision-making with enhanced tracking and analytics. The AI tool is set to enhance response tracking from various divisions, leading to more efficient progress monitoring and offering insightful analytics through a dashboard.

Mr. JP Tripathi, Associate Director (Ag) at Wadhwani AI, emphasised the institute’s commitment to building AI solutions for existing challenges while denoting that “A similar event tracking and analysis solution for disease outbreaks has been successfully deployed by the institute with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).”

The institute also reiterated that it is dedicated to providing effective tools for central government bodies like DA&FW to enhance information flow through data-driven decisions.

A&FW Secretary Manoj Ahuja, during the initiative’s launch, expressed that, “this news monitoring system will not just keep us informed but empower us to shape the narrative.” He stressed the importance of continuous improvement and adaptability in the ever-evolving world, emphasising the need for tools and methods that can evolve in tandem with the changing information landscape.