ITC empowers Indian farmers with smarter, sustainable farming

ITC, a large multi-business company in India, partnered with Microsoft to develop the Krishi Mitra app—an agricultural super app—using Microsoft Copilot, Azure Data Manager for Agriculture, and AI technologies. The app provides farmers with personalized guidance on crop management, pest control, soil health, and water conservation using generative AI and Natural Language Processing, supporting multiple local languages. FarmBeats research has been operationalized in real deployments, and Microsoft also supports Baramati Agricultural Development Trust (ADT) to reach sugarcane farmers with AI, sensors, and satellite data. The solution enables contextual advice via smartphones, integrating weather, market pricing, and agronomic data, thus overcoming traditional barriers of connectivity and expertise for smallholder farmers. Through orchestration plugins, Semantic Kernel, and RAG techniques, Krishi Mitra ensures accurate, relevant responses and data-driven decision support. Projects have scaled to thousands of farmers, with anticipated growth to 10 million by 2030, aiding India's workforce in the face of climate, pest, and sustainability challenges. AI tools continuously evolve and improve recommendations; real-time insights help optimize irrigation scheduling, harvest timing, and pesticide application for better yield and profit. The initiative supports India's agricultural sector, which sustains 43% of the workforce, breaks down language barriers, and improves digital adoption among rural communities. Overall, Microsoft technology has empowered farmers to adopt more sustainable, profitable, and resilient farming models via direct access to time-sensitive, localized data.