For decades, Indian agriculture has operated with a structural information deficit. More than 85% of the country’s farmers are smallholders cultivating less than two hectares of land, yet most agricultural advisories available to them have historically been generic, delayed, and disconnected from field realities. Farmers relied on manual inspections, local intuition, and fragmented government communication systems to make decisions about sowing, irrigation, pest management, and harvesting.

As climate variability intensified, these traditional systems became increasingly unreliable. Unpredictable rainfall, rising temperatures, pest outbreaks, degrading soil health, and water stress began causing significant crop losses across states. Agriculture departments, meanwhile, lacked the digital infrastructure needed to monitor millions of farms in real time. Crop surveys remained manual, disaster assessments took weeks, and relief distribution was often delayed or inaccurate.

It was within this context that fieldWISE was conceived by Nikhilesh Kumar and his team at Vassar Labs IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd.. Founded in 2014 in Telangana, the company set out to build a unified agricultural intelligence platform capable of connecting farmers, governments, insurers, and financial institutions through real-time data.

Creating India’s First Integrated Agriculture Intelligence Platform

fieldWISE is positioned as India’s first Integrated Agriculture Information and Management System. The platform combines AI, GIS mapping, remote sensing, IoT, satellite imagery, and cloud computing to create a digital intelligence layer for agriculture.

At its core, the platform integrates data from multiple sources including multispectral satellite imagery, drone surveys, SCADA systems, weather services, and mobile-based field applications. Using GIS-based mapping and AI-powered boundary detection, fieldWISE digitally maps farm boundaries and links plots to farmer identities, enabling integration with Digital Public Infrastructure initiatives such as Aadhaar-linked records and PM-KISAN databases.

The technology stack computes vegetation and crop-health indices including NDVI, EVI, and NDWI using satellite imagery. AI and machine learning models then analyse this data to generate yield forecasts, identify pest and disease outbreaks, monitor crop stress, and create farm-level advisories.

A major innovation within the platform is its GenAI-enabled conversational chatbot, which provides multilingual, voice-based advisories for farmers. Through image-based diagnostics, farmers can upload photos of affected crops and receive AI-generated pest or disease identification along with treatment recommendations.

The platform has been designed as a modular, no-code, plug-and-play system, allowing state agriculture departments to customise and operate it without long-term dependency on external technology vendors.

From Reactive Governance to Predictive Agriculture

Before fieldWISE, pest surveillance and crop monitoring were largely reactive. Agriculture officers often managed hundreds of villages, making timely field visits difficult. Farmers frequently discovered infestations only after extensive crop damage had already occurred.

fieldWISE transformed this process by enabling near real-time surveillance across agricultural regions. Agriculture extension officers can now conduct geo-tagged inspections through mobile dashboards, while AI systems continuously monitor crop health through satellite and sensor data.

The platform has already demonstrated significant impact during climate and disaster events. During Cyclone Montha in Andhra Pradesh, fieldWISE analytics identified 6.23 lakh acres of vulnerable farmland and mapped the cyclone’s trajectory. The system enabled rapid deployment of officers and triggered 69 lakh SMS alerts to farmers before the event. Post-cyclone, satellite and sensor data were used to cross-verify field-level damage reports, improving transparency in relief distribution.

The platform has also enabled protection of nearly 800,000 hectares of agricultural land from pest damage through AI-driven surveillance and early intervention systems. More than 10 million farms are now covered under agro-climatic zone-based crop planning systems powered by the platform.

Powering Agriculture Governance Across States

fieldWISE has been deployed across multiple large-scale government projects in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Telangana, Maharashtra, Haryana, and Odisha.

In Andhra Pradesh, the APAIMS platform built on fieldWISE has onboarded over one million farmers. In Kerala, the KATHIR platform serves approximately 1.5 million farmers through daily advisory and scheme-access services. Together, more than two million cultivators actively use fieldWISE-powered mobile applications.

The system is also used extensively by governments. Nearly 5,000 agriculture extension officers across Andhra Pradesh and Kerala use fieldWISE dashboards for pest surveillance, crop assessments, farmer verification, and scheme monitoring.

The platform has further improved access to government benefits including seed distribution, fertilizer support, insurance claims, pest alerts, and e-market services through a single unified interface.

Empowering Farmers Through AI

For farmers, the most significant shift has been the transition from intuition-driven agriculture to data-driven decision-making.

Farmers can now access localized weather forecasts, pest alerts, market prices, drone booking services, and input recommendations directly through mobile applications. The AI-powered diagnostic tools reduce dependence on overstretched extension workers and enable faster intervention during crop stress events.

Many users report that the system has improved their ability to plan irrigation, harvesting, and pesticide application more effectively. The platform has also enabled more targeted pesticide usage, reducing unnecessary chemical application while improving yield outcomes.

Agriculture officers similarly benefit from centralized dashboards that allow them to track pest outbreaks, monitor field conditions, verify farmer records, and coordinate response measures more efficiently.

Recognition and National Significance

fieldWISE has emerged as a prominent example of AI-driven digital public infrastructure for agriculture in India. The platform received the Excellence Award at the Software Product Management Summit hosted at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore in collaboration with the International Software Product Management Association.

The system was also showcased at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 and featured as a Google Cloud partner implementation in agriculture DPI forums. APAIMS, powered by fieldWISE, was demonstrated to Bill Gates as an example of AI-enabled agriculture governance.

Beyond productivity, fieldWISE contributes directly to India’s climate resilience agenda by enabling governments to monitor droughts, floods, pest outbreaks, and crop stress in near real time. By linking field-level intelligence with financial and insurance systems, the platform is also expanding economic inclusion for smallholder farmers who have historically remained underserved by formal credit and insurance networks.

Today, fieldWISE is impacting approximately 15 million farmers across six Indian states — positioning itself not merely as an agri-tech platform, but as foundational digital infrastructure for the future of Indian agriculture.