Shri Kavach
Biocontrol + integrated pest defence shield
Origin & History
The protection layer, decoded.
Kavach (कवच) means 'armour'. Built on the National Centre for Integrated Pest Management (NCIPM) framework, Shri Kavach replaces calendar-based pesticide spraying with a layered defence: pheromone traps + scouting drones + AI image classification + curated biocontrol releases (Trichogramma, NPV, Beauveria). Aligned with India's Pesticide Management Bill 2020 and FSSAI MRL norms.
The Science
Field-deployed pheromone-baited delta traps + sticky boards feed daily insect counts. A YOLOv8 vision model on the trap image classifies and counts target species. Threshold breaches trigger biocontrol agent dispatch (predator + parasitoid). Last-resort: targeted IGR or selective insecticide via drone, GPS-fenced.
Crop Applications
How Shri Kavach shows up in the field.
Each crop responds differently to protection-layer intelligence. Validated across ICAR + state agri university pilots.
Cotton
Pink bollworm — pheromone delta traps + NPV cut sprays from 12 → 4 per season.
Tomato
Tuta absoluta — Trichogramma releases reduce damage by 70%.
Sugarcane
Top borer + woolly aphid — Beauveria bassiana foliar bio-spray.
Brinjal
Shoot/fruit borer — neem + cue-lure traps cut pesticide use 80%.
Practices across States
Crop × state ground-truth deployments.
How Shri Kavach is being practised today — drawn from state agriculture department programmes, ICAR institutes and CIDSA field partners.
Andhra Pradesh
Crop: Cotton
Guntur cluster — Kavach + APCNF Neemastra cuts pink bollworm sprays by 60%.
Maharashtra
Crop: Cotton
Vidarbha — pheromone trap density + drone sentinel scouting on AGRISTACK pilot.
Karnataka
Crop: Tomato
Kolar polyhouse — Kavach Trichogramma augmented releases under Krishi Bhagya.
Punjab
Crop: Cotton + Paddy
Stubble pest + paddy stem borer monitoring via Kavach IoT traps.
Farmer Benefits
What the farmer takes home.
Shri Kavach translates field intelligence into bankable, measurable, daily outcomes — without locking the farmer into proprietary inputs.
Pesticide sprays cut by 50–80% across pilot crops
MRL-compliant produce → fetches export-grade premium
Pollinator-friendly farms → 12–18% better fruit set
Farmer health: 90% lower applicator exposure
Connect the Protocol
Explore neighbouring layers.
Shri Mantra is a connected protocol — these layers interact directly with the one you just read.