Some farmers still struggle with basic techniques like: soil analysis, pesticides, fertilizers, water irrigation systems... The combination of ICT and agriculture techniques is needed and can change processes for the better. In already profitable, big, well managed farms, the implementation of solutions like IoT, computer-vision, satellite imagery,... will be more fluid and can help reach higher yield and define new challenges.
In this post we will see 3 problems and the solutions developed by startups to tackle them:
- Pollination -> drone for precision pollination
- Where pesticides and fertilizers should be applied? -> drone analysis, balloon imagery and GPS sprayer
- Pasture management -> satellite imagery
Frankly speaking this could be an overkill in some rural areas or in some situation, because the local farm workers may still need the jobs that a farmer intend to automate, or if we know that a farmer will face groundwater drought in the next few years, or if know that an other farmer is saving money to buy his first tractor.
A specific solution is needed depending on every farm situation.
Precision pollination
The winner of DBS TECH FOR IMPACT PRIZE part of LEE KUAN GLOBAL BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION is POLYBEE, it's a scalable autonomous drone platform that aims to increase agricultural productivity and enhance food security through automation.
The drone insure precision pollination in indoor farming and will replace bees and on hand pollination, the solution is for greenhouses and vertical and attempt to increase profitability.
POLYBEE collects visual data with a camera and use artificial intelligence and computer vision to measure and compare plant traits, user can access a dashboard for analysis and reports.
Increase crop yield
On the 10 April 2021, THINK ORANGE AGTECH has been announced as the first place winner of STARTUP ALLEGANY collegiate competition organized by incubatorworks.org, they provide drone analysis by flying a drone over a field, they :
- collect
- process
- analyse,
The data analysis will than give insights to farmers and help them take decision like: where pesticides and fertilizers should be applied, of course the goal is to improve profitability.
Intelligent spray
On the 1 September 2021, VENTURE CLUB OF INDIANA published a press release announcing SMART GUIDED SYSTEMS as the innovation showcase second place winner with $6,000 prize. SMART GUIDED SYSTEMS is offering a precision spraying add-on kits using state-of-the-art technology to improve equipment efficiency:
- smart spray for crops,
- GPS sprayer and spreader for golf,
Baloon imagery
On the 26 February 2021, amazon.com published a post announcing STRATODYNE as the second place winner of AWS US University Startup Competition 2020 with $20k cash and $100k in AWS credits, STRATODYNE builds controllable balloons to monitor crop fields. They help farmers make decisions with predictive insights generated by real-time imagery, the goal is to help growers increase revenue by unlocking the full yield potential of every acre.
Satellite imagery for pasture management
On the 17 December 2021, S-BOOSTER organized S-BOOSTER2021 and announced CHIPSPACE as the winner of ntt docomo prize with JPY 500k award. CHIPSPACE is a platform that correlates data from chipsafer's terrestrial sensors with purchased axelspace satellite imagery in order to help livestock farmers better manage their pasture by :
- making better use of the land and water resources they have,
- contributing to regenerative farming,
- detecting quality/degradation early on,
- achieving timely selection of rotation areas,
- delimit grazing areas,
- assessing if the farms are emitting or sequestering carbon.
The goal is to assist livestock farmers increase their yield.
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