Academicians and industry experts exchanged ideas on drone technology and computational techniques that can be applied in agriculture.

A two-day bilingual workshop titled — Drone-driven smart agriculture practices for precision crop disease detection — was hosted by the department of information technology of the MCKV Institute of Engineering in Howrah.

Spread over Thursday and Friday, the workshop saw participants from various higher education institutes deliberate on drone technology in farming.

“There were discussions on how drone technology can be effective in precision farming. The sensors in the drones can capture images of the infected crop, and
technology can be used to analyse that information and convey it to the farmers,” said Shampa Sengupta, associate professor, department of information technology at the MCKV Institute of Engineering and the workshop coordinator.

Sengupta said there was an exchange of ideas on the usage of drone technology for precision spraying of chemicals or even to monitor “crop disease.”

The workshop paved the way for deeper insights into sustainable, technology-driven agricultural practices that contribute to a greener and healthier ecosystem.

“Technology can be used for sustainable farming by reducing the overuse of chemicals in crops or even water,” Sengupta said.

The brainstorming sessions ranged from using technology to assess water and nutrient deficiencies in crops to measuring soil moisture content.

The workshop was organised under the AICTE VAANI (Vibrant Advocacy for Advancement and Nurturing of Indian Languages), a scheme that provides financial assistance to institutes in emerging fields of technical education in Indian languages.

The event was inaugurated by Alokesh Ghosh, scientist, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Kolkata, in the presence of Parthasarathi Chakraborthy, CEO, MCKV Group; Abhijit Lahiri, principal, MCKV Institute of Engineering; deans and heads of departments.