The interviews and reporting for this story were conducted in 2024.

Since time immemorial, farmers have relied on rain, soil fertility, and expensive pesticides to grow their crops. Often, they would end up in a debt trap after incurring huge crop losses owing to unseasonal rains, hailstorm, and decreasing soil fertility.

But, two college friends delved into this sector with a strong desire to revolutionise farming practices. Calvin Aranha and Farish Anfal have integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) into hydroponic farms to grow crops!

At their vertical farm in Brahmavara in Karnataka, they are growing exotic crops such as lettuce, basil, kale and parsley using AI.

It was after completing their engineering at the Mangalore Institute of Technology and Engineering (MITE) in Moodabidri that the Udupi-based friends aspired to work in the agriculture sector. Although Calvin went on to work in Bengaluru in the corporate world, Farish started a small seafood business.

As part of his work, Farish says he learnt about the various issues faced by farmers at the grassroots level. “I found that farmers were facing a lot of challenges in making farming profitable due to climate change. I talked to more farmers and came to know the gravity of problems faced by them on a regular basis,” he tells The Better India.