What challenges did ITC face before AI implementation?

Many farmers lack access to expertise, time-sensitive agronomic data, and modern connectivity, limiting their ability to respond to changing weather and market needs. Rising pest threats due to climate change lead to higher pesticide usage and crop losses. Language diversity hinders widespread digital adoption. Manual farming practices increase input costs and environmental impact. Limited means to optimize harvest timing and crop management result in lost revenue and efficiency. Smallholder farmers struggle to access sustainable technologies and targeted advice.

What was the impact of the AI solution?

Yield increases of 21-40% for participating farmers. Reduction in pesticide and fertilizer usage by 5-9%. Lowered irrigation time and input costs by up to 30%. Improved crop quality and profitability—expanding reach to millions by 2030. High adoption among smallholder farmers, breaking language and connectivity barriers. Promoted sustainability and digital transformation in Indian agriculture.

Source

MicrosoftExpanded

ITC empowers Indian farmers with smarter, sustainable farming

Use case typeAgriculture optimizationUpdated Jun 13, 2026

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.

Organization: ITC
Industry: Agriculture
Location: India
Published: August 2024

Reported outcomes

40%

quantified impactOther quantified impact

−9%quantified impact−30%time

Strategic outcomes

New product / capabilityLaunched AI-powered farming advisory appCustomer experience & trustEnabled local-language personalized farm guidanceBetter decisions & insightImproved data-driven farm decision supportMarket & geographic expansionScaled to reach more farmers

Primary read

Use case focus

Showing 3 of 5

1AI-powered farm management and decision support
2Multi-language, personalized crop advisory for farmers
3Automated pest forecast and irrigation scheduling

Many farmers lack access to expertise, time-sensitive agronomic data, and modern connectivity, limiting their ability to respond to changing weather and market needs.
Rising pest threats due to climate change lead to higher pesticide usage and crop losses.
Language diversity hinders widespread digital adoption.
Manual farming practices increase input costs and environmental impact.
Limited means to optimize harvest timing and crop management result in lost revenue and efficiency.
Smallholder farmers struggle to access sustainable technologies and targeted advice.

ITC partnered with Microsoft to create Krishi Mitra using Microsoft Copilot and Azure Data Manager for Agriculture.
FarmBeats transformed research into practical farming tools with IoT, drones, and AI.
ADT project deployed sensors, satellite data, and AI-driven advisory apps for sugarcane farmers.
The app supports local language queries, personalized recommendations, and integrates market/weather/agronomic data.
Semantic Kernel and RAG improve contextual advice accuracy; plugins facilitate efficient interface design.
Real-time alerts and recommendations are provided on pest detection, irrigation, and harvest optimization.

Technologies

Azure Microsoft Copilot AI IoT Drone sensing Machine Learning Satellite data Semantic Kernel RAG

Yield increases of 21-40% for participating farmers.
Reduction in pesticide and fertilizer usage by 5-9%.
Lowered irrigation time and input costs by up to 30%.
Improved crop quality and profitability—expanding reach to millions by 2030.
High adoption among smallholder farmers, breaking language and connectivity barriers.
Promoted sustainability and digital transformation in Indian agriculture.

Architecture

Krishi Mitra uses Semantic Kernel-based orchestration to route queries to Microsoft plugins, which retrieve real-time weather, market, and agronomic data. Azure Data Manager for Agriculture aggregates diverse farm datasets. The app layers generative AI (Copilot) for natural language chat and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) for contextual answers. IoT sensors and satellite data flow into backend Azure services and are analyzed by AI to power mobile advisory and alerts.

Sources & evidence1

ExpandedExpanded

The same organization appears in newer AI deployment evidence.