India, Feb. 11 -- On a relatively warm February afternoon in Khutbav, a small village in Pune district, farmer Mahendra Thorat surveys his sugarcane field with cautious optimism. His crop stands taller than ever, the stalks thick and green, promising a yield higher than anything he has harvested in the past decade. The difference, he says, is not in the seeds or the soil-but in the invisible algorithms guiding his every move.

Thorat is among 1,000 farmers participating in an experiment that could change the future of sugarcane farming in India. Using artificial intelligence (AI) tools - developed by Agriculture Development Trust (ADT), a Baramati-based agricultural institution founded by Sharad Pawar and his brother Appasaheb Pawar in 19...