FarmERP Mitigates Losses and Maximises Yields for a Cassava Plantation Business
Introduction
A reputed plantation enterprise in a western African country cultivates Cassava crops over 3000 Ha of land area. Considering the large size of the plantation, managing the end-to-end field activities was a bit challenging for the agribusiness. Hence, the enterprise was looking for an efficient software platform that could streamline its plantation management activities.
Challenge
- First and foremost, the enterprise was finding it quite difficult to manage its Cassava plantation that is spread across a large area.
- Identifying mortality or non-germination of cassava stems in the early stage of the crop cycle and making appropriate replanting plans and executing the same were challenging due to the unavailability of real-time data.
- Yield losses and huge replanting costs were the risks the client faced due to unplanned replanting tasks.
- Efficient crop growth monitoring was also an issue for the enterprise, considering the large size of the Cassava plantation. This led to significant revenue losses.
Approach
FarmERP first evaluated the existing conditions as well as the challenges faced by the Cassava plantation enterprise. Based on this assessment, FarmERP understood that FarmGyan – our agriculture intelligence platform, could be extremely beneficial for the client. So, FarmERP delivered FarmGyan solutions to the plantation agribusiness in the following manner:
- An AI-based model was provided for the standard plant count of Cassava using drone imagery. The number of plants over the plantation area and plant density per Ha is calculated by the AI model every time the drone images are fed.
- FarmERP helps in calculating the area covered under the Cassava crop.
- The AI model also calculates the area covered by weed to identify weed intensity on every plot.
- Similarly, FarmERP calculates and estimates yield outputs based on plant count.
- Satellite-based crop health monitoring using different vegetation indices is also provided by FarmERP to the plantation enterprise.
- FarmERP carries out real-time analysis of crop vegetation cover to support the client’s decision-making for cassava crop management.
- Moreover, FarmERP enables the planning and execution of agronomic activities such as irrigation, fertiliser application, etc. based on the analysis of satellite-based vegetation indices.
Benefits
With the help of its agro-advisory intelligence platform FarmGyan, FarmERP helped the western Africa-based enterprise to gain complete control over its Cassava plantation management. The critical concerns of inefficient plantation management, low-quality yields, and revenue losses were eliminated by FarmERP with the help of its state-of-the-art plantation management software.
- It became easy and efficient to calculate the number of plants in the early season to monitor germination and mortality.
- Significant decrease in yield losses due to mortality and non-germination of Cassava in the early stage.
- Costs for replanting reduced with access to real-time plant count data.
- Information on weed count and area covered by weed helped the client to take the right decisions and ensure weed control to prevent yield losses.
- Crop health monitoring in real-time provided the client with an analysis of stress on Cassava crops. FarmERP also encouraged the client to take timely action to mitigate potential risks due to different crop stresses.