India is the world’s 2nd largest sugarcane producer, home to over 500+ sugar mills. But it’s a crop where outdated irrigation practices mean ~2.6% of farmland ends up using nearly a quarter of the nation’s irrigation water. With declining yields, many growers are finding farming unsustainable, leading to income losses, while the low yields are affecting sugar mill operations. Climate change is making matters worse: erratic rainfall patterns are intensifying water stress, threatening both crop productivity and farmer livelihoods. The technology to use water more efficiently already exists. But for most of India’s farmers, 86% of whom are smallholders, precision irrigation remains out of reach due to high costs and limited financing options.
Launched in 2016, Cultyvate is working to change that with low-cost, IoT- and AI/ML-based solutions that enable precise, need-based irrigation. They began with working on their smart irrigation solution for enabling alternate wetting and drying in paddy. Having scaled their solution to 58,000 acres in paddy, Cultyvate is now turning its focus to sugarcane.
Designed specifically for smallholders, their affordable autonomous irrigation stack for sugarcane integrates soil moisture sensors, automated water controls, and stage-specific advisories based on real-time data. It automates drip irrigation and enables farmers to schedule and manage water use with minimal manual intervention. In partnership with sugar mills, they piloted the technology over 50 acres, achieving 35% water savings and a 55% increase in crop yields. This year, the pilot is scaling to 700 acres, with a target of reaching 46,000 acres by 2030. At that scale, the potential water savings reach 68 billion litres, alongside farmer income gains of up to 50%.
Cultyvate plans to deepen its partnerships with sugar mills, both to expand its reach to more farmers and to establish models where farmers aren’t burdened with upfront costs. However, to drive adoption among smallholders at scale, further cost optimisation will be key.
ACT for Environment is supporting Cultyvate in bringing about this cost reduction by optimising both their hardware and software to make the system more robust, accurate, and scalable, while targeting a ~18% reduction in price for the farmers. The upgraded advisory will also integrate new crop and climate parameters to improve precision even further.
By reducing water use while increasing yields, Cultyvate’s solution not only boosts farmer incomes but also strengthens mill operations, creating a win–win for both. We’re excited to back their mission to build a more water-secure Bharat while transforming the livelihoods of farmers.
