Speaking at the inauguration of FAI’s four-day national training programme on information and communication technology (ICT) for smart fertiliser management in Kufri, Shimla, Chaudhari stressed that making the intelligent use of technology in agriculture and the fertiliser sector was no longer an option but a national priority.
“India will need to produce more than 400 million tonnes of food grain by 2030 and close to 450 million tonnes by 2047, when the country marks 100 years of independence,” he said in a statement.
Calling for a fundamental shift in the fertiliser industry, he said, “Our target is not the farmer but the plant root, and when the industry orients itself around delivering the right nutrient, in the right quantity at the right location and at the right time”, it opens the door to an entirely new class of innovations in precision nutrition, sensor-based delivery, and specialty fertiliser formulations.
Noting that India, with its deep agrarian knowledge base dating back to the Vedic period, is uniquely positioned to lead this conversation globally with natural farming, organic farming, conservation agriculture and regenerative agriculture as frameworks.
Highlighting the transformative potential of digital tools, Chaudhari stressed that blockchain technology was capable of reshaping the fertiliser sector’s logistics and governance, enabling traceability and transparency from port-of-entry to the farmer’s farm gate.
ICT, when applied across the fertiliser value chain from production planning and risk management in plants to supply chain optimisation, remote sensing, GIS-based soil mapping, satellite imagery and AI-driven advisory systems, can drive meaningful gains in energy efficiency, policy compliance, and agricultural productivity, he added.
The four-day programme has been designed to cover the full spectrum of ICT applications in the fertiliser and agriculture sectors, including blockchain for logistics, predictive analytics for supply and demand forecasting, sensor networks for soil and crop monitoring, precision agriculture and the role of digital technology in Blue Ocean Strategy.