Precision Agriculture

By Prof. Kishore Chandra Swain | Visva-Bharati

Learners enrolled: 3726 | Exam registration: 1160

ABOUT THE COURSE:

Precision agriculture stands for the technology which supports the application of precise and exact amount of inputs like fertilizer, water, pesticides etc. to the actual place of crop requirement, at the correct time ensuring better crop productivity and maximizing crop yield and profits. The supporting technologies, such as GIS, GPS, Remote Sensing, Site specific management zones, VRT, Green seeker, Yield monitor, Drone, Sensors and WSN etc. enables proper adoption of precision agriculture. Though the rate of adoption of precision agriculture technology is somewhat slow in developing countries, but they are catching up now-a-days. The course will cover major technologies involved in precision agriculture in terms of tutorials, practical worksheets, field images and videos. Students and professional completing the course will be able to spread as well as enrich the technology through their research and extension activities.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Student in the Discipline of Agricultural Engineering, Civil Engineering, Geo-Informatics

INDUSTRY SUPPORT:

Inside FPV, AVPL
Absolute, AgNext, DaHaat, CropIn, AgroStar etc.

Summary

Course Status :	Ongoing
Course Type :	Core
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	8 weeks
Category :	Agricultural and Food Engineering
Credit Points :	2
Level :	Postgraduate
Start Date :	16 Feb 2026
End Date :	10 Apr 2026
Enrollment Ends :	16 Feb 2026
Exam Registration Ends :	27 Feb 2026
Exam Date :	25 Apr 2026 IST
NCrF Level	4.5 — 8.0

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Introduction to Precision Agriculture (PA) and GPS Receiver

Week 2: GIS System and applications

Week 3: Hands-on with QGIS/ GPS receiver with real field examples

Week 4: Remote sensing (RS) application, SNAP and vegetation indices

Week 5: Crop scouting and site-specific management zone, Variable rate technology (VRT), Decision support system (DSS) for Precision nutrient and Irrigation Management

Week 6: Introduction to artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine learning (ML), Advanced concept of GIS

Week 7: Modern equipment: Green seeker, SPAD 502, Yield monitor and yield map analysis, Drone

Week 8: Modern equipment: Laser leveller, Wireless sensor network, IOT, Farm robots

Books and references

Swain, K.C. (2020). A textbook on precision agriculture, New Delhi Publishers, New Delhi
Zhang, Q. (2015). Precision Agriculture Technology for crop Farming. CRC Press.
Archana, H.A., Priyadharshini, A., Ambika, S., Roaa, S.D., Andrewsvimal, H.A. (2023). Geoinformatics for Precision Farming: A Digital Revolution in Agriculture,
Singh, B. (2020). Precision Farming and Protected Cultivation, New India Publishing Agency, NIPA, New Delhi.
Uadhyaa, T.K. and Sharma, S.K. (2020). A textbook on Geoinformatics, Nanotechnology and Precision Farming, New Delhi Publication, New Delhi.

Instructor bio

Prof. Kishore Chandra Swain

Visva-Bharati

Dr Kishore Chandra Swain is currently working as Head & Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural Engineering, Institute of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal. He has postdoctoral experience in Denmark (2 years) and Canada (1 year) and at Purdue University, USA as a Visiting Research Fellow. He has published seven books and nearly 100 journal and conference proceedings papers with Google Scholar H-index of 20, i-10 index 34, with 2004 citations. Around 30 journal publications have Thomson Reuters (Clarivate) impact factor in the range of 0 to 10.0 reflecting quality of his research works. Currently, he is handling projects in the capacity of PI and Co-PI in tune of 5 million rupees. He has sound computer programming knowledge in C, C++, MATLAB, AutoCAD, ArcView, ArcGIS, ENVI, SNAP/GEE.

Dr. Kishore Chandra Swain book “A Text book on Precision Agriculture” has been placed in top 200 best seller list for Agriculture in Amazon online for last two years. He has received a few awards, namely, ACPA Award of Honour-2019 by Asia-Australia Conference on Precision Agriculture, Young Scientist Award 2024, Best Reviewer Awards and Best Researcher Awards, etc. Five scholars have been awarded PhD under his guidance, of whom three scholars had got chance to work in different universities in the USA.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: April 25, 2026 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 6 assignments out of the total 8 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Kharagpur .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team

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