SATYUKT, A YUKT TO ELIMINATE MAJOR AGRICULTURAL LOSES

Birth of Satyukt

 With a deep connection to his Agricultural roots, Dr.Sat Kumar Tomar, CEO was aware of the fact that the penetration of technology and data-based information is less in rural areas, especially to small and marginal farmers. He understood that not only farmers need real-time agriculture data but also other stakeholders like various agriculture companies and government departments. This propelled him to do his research at IISc, Bangalore on satellite remote sensing coupled with field experiments to develop real-time accurate information at the farm scale for about 10 years. Grateful to the encouragement of friends and family, he decided to venture into a startup and use his expertise in solving practical issues of the farmers and other agriculture stakeholders rather than settling on academic positions

 A startup not only requires ideas and creativity but also a team with the same burning passion, Dr.Yukti Gill, whose expertise in applied Psychology, especially organizational behavior joined the journey to make an impact in farmers’ lives. Thus, by a pool of multidisciplinary technical professionals and advisors working on diverse problems and providing leading-edge solutions, Satyukt Analytics Private Ltd. was born in July 2018.

Essence of Satyukt 

 According to the reports, Globally farmers face 35 % of potential crop losses due to Irregular irrigation, ill-timed applied pesticide, and untimely fertilization. Also, FAO says, “ 96 billion dollars got lost in agriculture between 2005 and 2015 by developing countries”.The loss is mainly due to floods, pest attacks, cyclones, drought, and diseases. Satyukt products and services address these problems faced by the Agri sector. 

 Satyukt uses Cutting edge technologies like Remote sensing, Machine learning, and AI to provide near real-time data at the farm level. One might think that’s what most of the agri tech companies are offering but the essence here to praise is the accurate delivery of historical data for farm-level prediction. Satyukt is the only company in India that has expertise in processing microwave data, which works in all weather conditions and can provide space-based products in all-weather conditions throughout the year. This can be the biggest asset to any of the crop insurance companies and agri input industries to analyze and prevent crop damage, estimate the loss of pay as early as possible, and promote their products at the right time respectively.

Not only B2B but also Satyukt offers tech apps like Sat 2Farm, which helps farmers to understand their crop health, crop water stress estimation, weather forecast and provides irrigation advisory which can lead to a 10 to 15 % increase in crop yield, improve crop water productivity by 30 % and can even save 80% of time in-field scouting. To add a feather to one’s cap, its automated system provides early warnings of drought and flood. The services offered by SATYUKT can be a power package that any farmer needs. 

 Yukti Gill, the Co-founder of Satyukt in her words to Your Story,  “For a tech solution to be effective for smallholder farmers, it needs to be affordable, easy to use, and the information provided should be actionable. Sat2Farm ticks all three boxes. In addition, these advisories are available for free in many vernacular languages for farmers to enable easy access.”  

AgHub’s Role 

 We all need one big helping hand at the right time, one such agritech incubator is AgHub.It aids in assisting and facilitating Satyukt with farmers at the grassroots level to understand their real problems and challenges. Also, AgHub provided advertisement support for product promotions in mandia and melas. It has connected Satyukt to the scientific community of PJTSAU,  KVKs, and ARSs which has helped them to improvise the overall application compared to the initial stages of the pilot to build solutions to minimize the production risks of farmers.