Global initiative Call for Code on Friday announced that India-based agri-tech startup AI Farm has been chosen as the Asia Pacific Regional Winner for developing an intelligent system that evaluates climate and soil conditions to provide farmers with information to adapt their crop strategies. AI Farm will receive $5,000 (about 3.7 lakh) in the '2020 Call for Code Global Challenge' that asked developers to create solutions to help communities fight back against climate change and Covid-19.

Call for Code was launched in 2018 alongside Founding Partner IBM and UN Human rights. The application by AI Farm is an intelligent system that aims to provide farmers with the information they need to adapt their crop strategies to optimise water usage and control disease. The solution is a low-cost system that uses sensors to monitor groundwater levels, temperature, and humidity. The system uses the IBM Cloud, IBM Watson IoT platform, IBM Watson Visual Recognition, and Node-RED flows to create a hyperlocal weather forecast specific to the farm. 

Another agri-tech startup Agrolly won the global prize for innovative solution to help small farmers as they struggle with effects of climate change. "Agrolly and AI Farm were both named top solutions this year, highlighting the importance of agriculture. Technology can help farmers combat growing challenges from climate change through the application of emerging technologies like cloud, AI and IoT," said Priya Mallya, Country Leader, Developer Ecosystems, IBM ISA. Call for Code has also introduced a new initiative Call for Code for Racial Justice inviting developers to apply their skills and ingenuity to combat systemic racism.