Krushna's Blogs

  What Is Mombak? Why Is Google Interested in It?   #Mombak is a Brazil-based reforestation startup that focuses on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by restoring forests in the Amazon region. Mombak  started by Peter Fernandez (former CEO of 99) and Gabriel Silva (former CFO of Nubank) in 2021. Instead of using untested technologies, Mombak relies on a natural and well-understood process : trees absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and store it in their trunks, roots, and soil. This makes forests one of the most trusted methods of long-term carbon removal. What Exactly Does Mombak Do? 01.   Identifying degraded land Large areas of the Amazon were cleared in the past for cattle grazing. Much of this land is now degraded and underused. 02.   Partnering with landowners Mombak either buys land or partners with local landowners who agree to restore it. 03.  Replanting native Amazon trees The company plants native tree species ...

  Godaam Sense – The App That Detects Onion Spoilage and Saves Onions Before They Rot Farmers always relied on smell to detect onion spoilage. But once the smell comes, it’s already too late. Because of this, almost 40% of India’s onion production rots before it reaches the consumer. That’s a massive loss and the same thing was happening in Kalyani Shinde’s home.  Her father, a farmer in Nashik, Maharashtra lost half of his onion harvest every season.   Watching this year after year Kalyani- computer engineering student got the Idea to fix the problem. What she built next changed everything for her father and for millions of farmers. She went to Lasalgaon, Asia’s largest onion market, spoke to farmers, studied how Godowns work, and realised one thing: Spoilage starts long before you can see it or smell it. If farmers could know that early, they could easily save a huge part of the harvest.  So with just ₹3 lakh funding, she created something simple, powerful, a...

वेदना, नैराश्य आणि अस्थिरता: पुनर्निर्मिसाठी सुपीक भूमी  मानव समाजाचा एक आश्चर्यकारक पण शाश्वत नियम आहे, जेंव्हा त्यांच्या खोलवर रुजलेल्या मान्यतांवर कोणी प्रश्न उपस्थित करतो, तेंव्हा त्यांची पहिली प्रतिक्रिया नेहमीच नकार, टीका किंवा धिक्काराची असते. हे तेव्हाही घडते, जेव्हा ती टीका त्यांच्या स्वतःच्या हितासाठीच केलेली असते. कारण सामान्य मानवाचे ज्ञान मर्यादित असते. तो स्वतःच्या अनुभवांच्या चौकटीपलीकडे पाहू शकत नाही. नवीन विचार असो, नव्या कृती असोत किंवा जीवनाकडे पाहण्याचा नवीन दृष्टिकोन. विश्वात नवे निर्माण नेहमी जुन्या अवशेषांवरच उगम पावते. निर्माणाचा जन्म विध्वंसातून, प्रकाशाचा जन्म अंधारातून, तर परिवर्तनाचा जन्म वेदना आणि निराशेतून होतो. हीच वाढीची विस्मयकारक प्रक्रिया आहे.अंधार पार केल्याशिवाय प्रकाशाचा अनुभव येत नाही. जो मनुष्य या अंतर्मुख प्रवासावर जाण्याचे साहस करतो, जुने भ्रम, जुनी ओळख, जुने विश्वास मोडून टाकण्याची तयारी ठेवतो तो अदम्य बनू शकतो. अशा व्यक्तीचे आयुष्य काळाने नव्हे, तर चेतनेच्या खोलीने वाढते. इंद्रियांवर विजय मिळवला की भय, हानी किंवा पराभव यांना त्याच्यापर्...

Pain, Despair and Unrest: The Fertile Grounds of Renewal Human society has always shown a peculiar yet predictable pattern: whenever deeply held beliefs are challenged, the first reaction is rejection, criticism, and condemnation. This happens even when the challenge is intended for their own growth or benefit.  The ordinary human mind, limited by its own knowledge and confined by the boundaries of its experiences, struggles to perceive anything beyond itself—whether it is a new idea, a new way of living, or a new interpretation of reality. Across the universe, the birth of new life is often rooted in the ruins of what once existed. Creation emerges from destruction, clarity from chaos, and transformation from suffering. Pain and despair, though unwelcome, become fertile grounds for renewal.  This is the paradox of growth: only by passing through darkness do we discover deeper illumination. The human being who dares to walk this path of inner dissolution, who is willing to br...

  Project CONSERV in Brazil: Protecting Forests While Boosting Farmers’ Income In South America, Brazil’s Amazon–Cerrado region—covering about 2 million km² (roughly 20% of Brazil’s land area)—forms a transition zone between the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado savanna, a grassland region. It is a biodiversity hotspot, a vast carbon store, and the source of major rivers that feed the Amazon River basin.  But this region is continuously threatened by deforestation for soybean production, cattle ranching, and agricultural expansion. As more forests are cleared to make way for crop cultivation, the region has begun to experience rising local temperatures, increasing water stress, and declining agricultural yields. Between 1985 and 2022, more than 13 percent of the Amazon–Cerrado Region was cleared for agriculture. Soybean production, an important crop of Brazil’s economy, drove much of this change.  In the short term, profits increased, but deforestation soon triggered ...

  PILA: A Participatory Approach Linking Extension and Landscape Governance to Tackle Climate Change Climate change and deforestation are today’s greatest challenges. Forests provide water, regulate local climates, protect biodiversity, and support millions of people with food, wood, and livelihoods. But agricultural activities, logging, and human expansion continuously threaten these vital ecosystems.  To address these challenges, innovative approaches are needed. One such approach is the Participatory Informed Landscape Approach (PILA), developed and promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). What is the Participatory Informed Landscape Approach (PILA)? PILA is a multi-stakeholder, evidence-based method for integrated landscape management. It collects and analyzes data from satellite imagery and household surveys to understand the real situation on the ground. It creates platforms for dialogue , where farmers, governments, local...

  APAIMS 2.0: Imagine Farmers Getting Early Alerts with Instant Solutions for Better Farming Indian farming and farmers face many challenges every day—from cultivation to harvesting, marketing, and post-processing. At the same time, agriculture is evolving, with many efforts being made to develop technologies and solutions that make Indian agriculture more profitable and easier.  Among these, digital applications, especially those powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), are taking the lead. A good example of this can be seen in Andhra Pradesh.  To make farming more efficient and farmer-friendly, the Andhra Pradesh state government launched the Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Information and Management System (APAIMS) .  The purpose behind starting this platform was simple: to bring all agricultural services under one digital roof, make governance more transparent, and help farmers get faster support. Over time, the system has evolved, and today government have APAIMS 2...

  DSSAT: The Flight Simulator for Farming Pilots never take off  an airbus without first training on a flight simulator. In the same way, agriculture today has its own simulator — DSSAT. It allows farmers, scientists, and climate experts to test crops, soils, water, and weather virtually. Before risking real fields, they can rehearse decisions in this digital farm lab. Agriculture has always been a game of uncertainties. Rainfall, soil quality, seed variety, fertilizer application, and weather shifts all determine the fate of a harvest.  To predict the future of a crop, traditionally, the only way to know the outcome was to wait patiently for the season to end. But now, DSSAT (Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer), offers a way to run these scenarios on a computer, like a laboratory experiment, without waiting months or risking heavy losses. DSSAT is a scientifically built crop growth simulator that allows us to experiment virtually with different fa...

 She Studied How Rhizobia Interact with Plant Roots to Provide Nitrogen                and Boosted Soybean Production in Brazil In May 2025, Mariangela Hungria, a Brazilian microbiologist, awarded the prestigious World Food Prize for her transformative research on sustainable farming.  The prize, valued at $500,000, is often called the “ Nobel Prize of Agriculture ” and recognizes remarkable contributions to global food security. Hungria’s work focuses on a natural process called biological nitrogen fixation . Instead of relying on chemical fertilizers, she studied how soil bacteria, particularly rhizobia, interact with plant roots to provide nitrogen, an essential nutrient for crops.  Her research has enabled farmers to maintain high crop yields while protecting the environment. Over her 40-year career, Hungria has applied her discoveries directly in the field. She convinced farmers that using microbial solutions would not ...

  Do You Know About Carbon Credits? Telangana Farmers Are Earning Money by Selling Them Paddy or rice (Oryza sativa), often criticized for high methane emissions and massive water use, now turning into a source of extra income for farmers. In Telangana, farmers are earning carbon credits while cultivating paddy more sustainably, thanks to Sow&Reap Agro, a climate-tech start-up. Sow & Reap Agro Private Limited, founded in 2021 in Hyderabad, focuses on sustainable and regenerative agriculture. The startups collaborates with farmers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve livelihoods through techniques like Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) for paddy cultivation.  Recently, it became the first Indian company to earn Gold Standard carbon credits for these efforts. It has developed methodologies to cut water consumption significantly and reduce methane emissions in paddy fields.  This not only helps the environment but also adds about ₹2,500 per hectare ...