MONITORING STUBBLE FOR CLEANER AIR AND HAPPIER FARMERS!
The quality of air we breathe has a significant impact on both our health and the environment. In recent years, environmentalists, scientists, and social activists have identified the burning of stubble after the harvest season as a significant contributor to air pollution. This age-old practice is particularly prevalent in the Northern regions of India. However, if we can find a way to contain this practice and develop a smart solution that makes it a profitable and straightforward process for farmers, it would benefit everyone involved
One such smart solution that effectively addresses this burning issue was devised by the members of the team Eco-integrators at ATL 2019. Terming it Stumped Stubble- ‘Smart System for Stubble Management’ the team created an innovative and self-sustained practice mechanism that would effectively monitor, identify and utilize the various re-cycle worthy, upgradable or utility based elements contained in the stubble and incorporate the evolutionary process on the same to convert the stubble waste into a profit making proposition.
Eco-Integrators developed an integrated system, which
would cover the following aspects:
• Device a smart monitoring system so that stubble
burning in rural India can be checked at al large scale,
• Recycling the stubble into bricks, paper, bio-fuel, animal
feed supplement etc.,
• Scale it up to a product – service technology,
• Make it accessible to the agricultural communities.
The research project focused on minimizing the transportation logistics cost of stubble from fields to recycling centers. The project includes three main parts. The first part involves developing a stubble yield forecasting model using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Geographical Information System (GIS), and statistical analysis. This model is designed to sustain agricultural transportation under stochastic environments such as weather conditions, precipitation, soil type, and natural disasters. The second part of the study is an economic model that calculates the total cost associated with stubble harvest and transportation using GIS analysis to calculate distances traveled from cooperative farms to processing facilities in different locations. The third part focuses on minimizing the total cost of a monitoring device and its IoT interfacing using a two-step algorithm based on GIS with global optimization methods. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop a local agricultural technology that doesn’t require foreign investments or technological back-ups, contributing to bridging the gap between agricultural communities and small-scale industries. This research provides a stepping stone for the development of a data-driven analytical tool to minimize the total logistics cost of stubble management and recycling, useful for farmers, planners, and engineers
School :- DAV Public School, Amritsar, Punjab
TEAM NAME :- ECO-INTEGRATORS
TEAM MEMBERS :- Hemaang Gupta and Vasu Mehra
ATL IN-CHARGE :- Dr. Resham Sharma
