Bio

Rakesh Kumar Kadian working for Agriculture division of Trimble Navigation is based in Gurgaon and looks after the business development for the company in the SAARC countries. He is in the current role in his 5th year now.

Having studied agricultural sciences for a University degree from a premier institute, HAU Hisar and an MBA afterwards, he has a total work experience of more than 25 years, across various geographies of India. Prior to the current assignment, he has worked for 2 of the best Indian fertilizer companies, Shriram Fertilizers& Chemicals and Chambal Fertilisers & Chemicals Ltd and 2 leading agrochemical companies named Dow AgroSciences and Aventis CropSciences. Creating dealer networks for agro inputs, organizing marketing campaigns, establishing and operating retail store networks in rural India had been his main professional accomplishments. In the current role, he is helping farmers, scientists and managers for large enterprises managing the farming operations more efficiently.

Abstract

Precision farming technologies for farmers in SAARC region
As major shifts are happening in demographics and aspirational priorities of younger generation, farming practices are getting impacted because of young farmers finding it less happening to remain engaged in the family tradition. Coupled with people getting more conscious about the kind of foods they eat, it is creating a demand for a new kind of agriculture which is more holistic and less demanding on natural resources. This is where precision farming comes into the picture. With experts all over the globe agreeing that agriculture in the current form is not sustainable, given the kind of pressures it is putting on natural resources, it is but natural that it is being taught in all the universities in developed countries and many in the developing countries. This resonates with the younger generation as well which is a networked one. Trimble has been the global leader in offering Precision farming technologies and services across all the operations from land preparation to harvesting. Having capabilities of capturing data during all the farm operations to analyzing the same for better decisions for the farmers, I will be presenting a few of them to explain how the precision farming technologies are helping hundreds of thousands of farmers in SAARC region in letting them prepare their lands for the most efficient utilization of natural resources to application of inputs for the best output. I will also be telling how the research fraternity in agricultural sciences and larger operations having multiple operations can benefit immensely with our software coupled with machine control and guidance technologies.