Next time spare a thought when you are adding sugar to your morning English Breakfast Tea or coffee, the challenges faced by sugarcane farming.

Inside the world of green sugarcane crops, world’s largest sugar farmers of Kolhapur district in Maharashtra spanning several thousand acres owned by the Maharashtra State Cooperative Sugar Factories Federation and Uttar Pradesh (India) are seeking the help of Artificial Intelligence aided by scientists from the Agricultural Development Trust of Baramati using Microsoft AI technology. Weather station is a tall metal structure with gauges for wind, solar, temperature and humidity are on the top and at the bottom are sensors for the soil measure moisture, pH and electrical conductivity as well as nutrients like potassium and nitrogen. All these data is collected with the help of satellite and drone imagery as well as historical data to generate simple daily alerts via a mobile apps Water more. Spray Fertilizer, Scout for pests with satellite map pinpoints exact locations and action is needed, prompting farmers to do the right thing at the right time to optimize growing conditions for prime harvest when sucrose content in the sugar cane is at its peak. After six months of testing  on one-acre test plot on one farmer’s acre farms  resulting in making a distinct difference as the sugarcane leaves are greener.

Small sugar farms were at the mercy of the elements of nature drought, floods, pests and diseases which can wipe out entire harvest and punish farmers into debts. ADT was set up in the 1970s to help 1.6million local farmers in the drought-prone region for adopting conventional farming methods and among other things encourage them to do drip irrigation, which uses less water than the traditional flooding of fields, soil-less farming modern grafting methods and artificial insemination with foreign bulls and local cows to raise milk yields.

Imagine how AI has optimised sugarcane yield predictions using data analytics to improve pest and disease management strategies and machine learning by monitoring soil health and nutrient levels through sensor data integration. AI has also automated irrigation systems for efficient water usage based on real-time weather data. AI also streamlines supply chain logistics to reduce costs and improve delivery times, improve predictive maintenance for machinery to minimize downtime and repair costs.

In Maharashtra State, The Natural Sugar and Allied Industries Limited at Osmanabad district’s Kalamb Taluka will end up crushing 12.5 million metric tonnes of sugar cane this season, the highest  ever amount of sugar,  producing 124.75 litres of sugar.