A view of a cotton discipline.
| Photo Credit: Arif Mohd/The Hindu
Soon, a satellite tv for pc in area might be concerned in figuring out whether or not your favorite cotton costume is natural.
A brand new initiative by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) plans to mix knowledge from satellite tv for pc images and synthetic intelligence (AI) to maintain monitor of cotton certification in India.
The challenge is a collaboration between ESA, GOTS and AI firm Marple that may mechanically classify cotton fields in India according to cultivation requirements.
Under ESA’s Business Applications and Space Solutions programme, the initiative will prepare AI fashions to ‘read’ ESA satellite tv for pc knowledge to determine and classify cotton fields in India.
“This project highlights how space solutions can have a positive impact on the world and is the kind of innovation that ESA supports through its Business Applications and Space Solutions programme,” Guillaume Prigent, Business Development and Partnerships Officer at ESA, stated in an electronic mail to The Hindu.
The challenge will help GOTS to generate correct estimates of natural cotton yields in particular areas by incorporating standardised yield metrics.
GOTS is an alliance of 4 organisations — Organic Trade Association (US), the Internationaler Verband der Naturtextilwirtschaft (Germany), The Soil Association (U.Ok.) and the Japan Organic Cotton Association (Japan) — that brings collectively the textile and natural industries to promote natural textiles.
The initiative will determine cotton fields that meet predetermined requirements in addition to assist people who show potential for a seamless transition to natural cultivation by means of using conventional and ecologically pleasant farming practices.
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The major goal of the collaboration is to bolster the integrity of natural cotton by growing superior threat evaluation strategies and to forestall fraud all through the provision chain.
The method is anticipated to convey a better variety of small-scale farmers into the licensed natural sector and provide chains, creating new financial alternatives for them and their communities.
It might additionally help handle the escalating client demand for natural cotton inside the textile trade.
The programme has already had a profitable pilot run in Uzbekistan, one of many world’s high cotton producers, in 2021. The knowledge from the pilot challenge confirmed a 98% accuracy in differentiating between natural cotton fields and standard ones.
The challenge might be applied throughout varied cotton-growing areas in India the place natural cotton manufacturing performs a big function. The first outcomes are anticipated to be obtainable in late 2023.
