Ft. | Devan Chandrasekharan | The spark came after the 2018 floods, when Devan saw how his mother, a Pokkali rice farmer, and others in the region struggled with declining soil health. He wondered whether farming could move away from traditional, soil-based practices to a more data-driven approach. Drones, he realised, could be the key — capturing crop data, analysing it, and enabling precise application of fertilizers and pesticides instead of the blanket methods farmers had relied on for decades.