Digital Agriculture in LMICs - 27 Mar #52
Partnerships announced between Cropin and AWS and MTN Nigeria-NiMet-Tomorrow.io; Vietnam’s Techcoop raises $5M; Indonesia’s eFishery acquires AI/IoT startup Dycodex
19/03/24
MTN joins NiMet and Tomorrow.io for weather and climate information in Nigeria
Mobile operator MTN Nigeria has announced a new partnership with the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) to disseminate weather and climate intelligence to farmers. The partnership is an extension of a pre-existing collaboration between NiMet and weather intelligence and climate adaptation company Tomorrow.io. Last December, NiMet and Tomorrow.io signed a MoU whereby the latter committed to support the national met agency with the commercialisation of weather data, the enhancement of weather and climate forecast accuracy and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in weather and climate intelligence.
Under the partnership, MTN will leverage its base of 78 million mobile connections, representing 38% market share, to disseminate localised weather and climate information. There are still no details on the types of services that MTN is planning to launch. On its part, MTN Group has a pre-existing collaboration with Tomorrow.io to provide early warnings and critical weather information to 300+ million people across Africa. The partnership was announced last December on the sidelines of COP 28. At the time, MTN Group and Tomorrow.io said that they were looking to collaborate with national meteorological offices in participating countries.
20/03/24
Cropin and AWS announce partnership to address food insecurity
Indian agritech CropIn, an AI and data driven software as service (SaaS) agritech, has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) through the AWS Impact Computing initiative to build a new solution addressing food insecurity. CropIn is planning to develop an open-source dashboard aggregating global farmland data and climate intelligence within a single solution. The solution will leverage AWS's High Performance Computing (HPC), modelling/simulation, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, visual/spatial computing, and generative AI. In addition, CropIn will be able to use AWS’ industry insights from its agriculture and sustainability specialists.
The plan is for the solution to provide decision intelligence, which can be then disseminated via SMS and WhatsApp to governments, development agencies, and agribusinesses looking to ensure food security for vulnerable populations. Beneficiaries include farmers, field officers, governments, development agencies, and agribusinesses. According to FAO, in 2022 between 691 and 783 million people faced hunger, reversing decades of progress. This figure represents an increase of 122 million people compared to 2019, before the pandemic.
Photo credit: CropIn
22/04/23
Agri-fintech Techcoop raises $5M to expand across Vietnam
Vietnamese agri-fintech Techcoop has raised USD 5 million in equity and debt from local banks. The funding came from local VC firms Ascend Vietnam Ventures (AVV) and Singapore-based TNB Aura. Ethos Ventures, South Korea’s impact investor MYSC, and Mandala Capital also participated in the round. The agritech plans to use the money to expand operations across 30 cities and provinces in Vietnam through eight strategic operation hubs.
Founded in 2022, Techcoop provides value chain digitalisation solutions to farmers, agribusinesses, farmer-owned cooperatives, input suppliers and financial service providers (FSPs). Techcoop uses field and transactional data to monitor operations and provide a range of services including data-driven credit to farmers (e.g. agri-inputs with 3-6 month payment terms), agribusinesses and cooperatives via its FSP partners. The agritech currently reaches over 150,000 farmers.
Photo credit: Techcoop
25/03/24
eFishery acquires Dycodex to develop AI/IoT solutions in Indonesia
Indonesian aquatech eFishery has acquired local tech company Dycodex, a provider of IoT and AI-powered solutions. EFishery, the first agritech unicorn in Indonesia and the only aquatech unicorn globally, wants to introduce new AI/IoT products in the next two to three years, including generative AI. At the moment, it only offers the AI-powered eFeeder device, which automates feeding for shrimp and fish farming. Founded in 2013, eFishery initially developed an Internet of Things (IoT) based smart pond management system. The aquatech has over time expanded to an end-to-end solution enabling fish farmers to access markets and financial services. Last year, the company completed a USD 200 million Series D round reaching a valuation of USD 1.4 billion. EFishery targets 1+ million aquaculture ponds in Indonesia by 2025, and has initiated international expansion starting from India.
20/03/24
Good reads (1): New report looks at use of digital agriculture in FAO projects
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has launched the new report “Digital agriculture in FAO projects in Sub-Saharan Africa”. A collaboration with Wageningen University and Research (WUR), the study offers an in-depth exploration of the current landscape of FAO’s digital agriculture interventions across the region. Researchers conducted survey and analysis of 72 projects in 40 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa analysing the extent to which FAO-supported projects implemented digital tools.
The study reveals that the majority of the identified initiatives (41.7 percent) were “mid-level” digital projects, with a couple of digital activities implemented in much larger agrifood projects. Conversely, so-called “low-level” digital projects, those with a primarily symbolic role for the digital component (for example, utilising a tablet for data collection in a seed-production initiative), were 16.7 percent of the total. Projects predominantly reliant on digital technologies comprised only 23.6 percent of the total. Another key finding of the report is about the prevalence within the FAO footprint of basic digital tools like mobile apps and SMS services, underscoring the importance of user-friendly solutions tailored to farmers' requirements.
20/03/24
Good reads (2): IFC shares learnings on digitising farmer payments in Ethiopia
The IFC has published the report Digitizing Value Chain Payments for Smallholder Farmers in Ethiopia. The study utilised surveys and financial diaries with farmers. Its objective is to offer a comprehensive understanding of financial flows and digital payment needs of smallholders and other value chain actors. It also assesses the ability of financial services providers (FSPs) to use technology to expand access to finance to value chain actors. The study focuses on three value chains: malt barley, chicken feed and vegetables. The main recommendation is to support FSPs in building in-house product development expertise. The IFC highlights the need for FSPs to have direct and intensive support in developing financial services, particularly in product development and data-driven decision-making. The report recommends the creation of a data-driven environment to provide quality and segmented data for different farming zones and value chains.