By OUR STAFF REPORTER
Dehradun, 10 Nov: Agriculture Minister Ganesh Joshi participated as the Chief Guest at a national seminar sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Research at DAV College on Saturday.
In his address, Minister Joshi congratulated the organisers for holding a national seminar on the much-discussed and relevant topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI). He stated that the world is moving towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where AI is merging with both humans and machines. He highlighted the growing importance of AI, noting that the investment in AI today is four times the GDP of India.
Minister Joshi mentioned that discussions around AI often focus on both its positive and negative impacts. He acknowledged the vast potential of AI and emphasised the integration of AI into the education system, a recommendation made in India’s new National Education Policy 2020. He also spoke about the efforts being made to bring a food revolution in the agriculture sector through AI to meet the increasing global demand for food. He mentioned that, by 2050, it will be necessary to produce 50% more food than today to meet the food needs of an additional 2 billion people worldwide.
Minister Joshi pointed out that AI can help address challenges such as meeting food requirements, ensuring irrigation, and tackling the misuse of pesticides and fertilisers. He highlighted the collaboration between the NITI Aayog and IBM for precision farming, which aims to provide real-time advisories to farmers using AI. Through this initiative, a crop cultivation technology model will be developed to improve crop productivity, manage soil health, control agricultural inputs, and issue early warnings on pest and disease outbreaks.
He explained that IBM’s AI model will use data from remote sensing (ISRO), soil health cards, IMD weather forecasts, and crop phenology. This project is being implemented in 10 aspirational districts across Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.
Minister Joshi further noted that the impact of AI technology is vast and challenging, with its applications rapidly growing in sectors like the economy, inclusive development, health, education, skills, transport, communication, smart cities, infrastructure, and agriculture. He stressed that it is equally important to consider the positive impact of AI on creativity, art, and critical thinking.
Also present at the event were MLA Savita Kapoor, Director of Higher Education Prof Anju Agrawal, Prof Reena Chandra, MP Kulshreshtha, Prof Kiran Dangwal, Prof Himanshu Agrawal, Prof OP Kulshreshtha, Prof KR Jain, Dr Hariom Shankar, and several other dignitaries.
