Ever wondered if there would have been a technology that could protect farmlands from animal attacks yet without any violent retaliation. That would surely help in reducing the ever-growing man-animal conflict in the agricultural zones, especially those which share a border with wildlife sanctuaries.
Ghaziabad based agri-tech startup, KYARI has developed a device that could help in avoiding the huge economic losses that farmers have to incur every year, as a result of damages to crops due to regular animal attacks.
This device, ANIDERS uses a combination of Active and Passive Infrared Sensing to sense the animal approaching the fields, and based on the traced movement and location of the animal, it triggers a light and sound alarm system of that sector. This helps the farmers to pin point the location of intrusion at night.
The idea and its translation
Incorporated in September 2017, KYARI has been founded by Abhay Sharma and Smratika Sharma. The founders have a passion for protecting animal life and helping farmers.
Being wildlife enthusiasts, Abhay and Smratika used to visit Jim Corbett National Park quite frequently. On one of such trips, they encountered a brutally injured elephant in the buffer zone of the national park. On asking around, they got to know that this elephant’s leg got trapped in an animal trap. A trap that a farmer had installed on the periphery of his farm to protect his crops from elephants.
Later that week, that elephant succumbed to his injury and died. Being animal lovers, they got furious as to why would a farmer take such an extreme step just to protect his field. They went to the farmers in an effort to educate them not to harm the wild animals, but when they told them about the crop raiding problems they faced every crop season and how they had to bear huge losses because of it. That’s when they got to know how complicated the problem was.
Abhay Sharma, co-founder, KYARI explains: “We could not blame farmers for their actions, these people were making desperate moves to protect their livelihood. Many farmers have left farming and moved to cities because they cannot sustain farming. We understood the root cause of the problem and decided to device a solution that could protect the crops from wild animal intrusion while ensuring the safety of wild animals. That is how the idea of ANIDERS was born.”
