About
The Chamka App is built for rural farmers to help improve access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and farming techniques, provide extension services and technical support via an online chat messaging service that helps farmers connect to more suppliers and buyers.
Capability and features
The Chamka app provides agriculture e-learning and technical advice on farming, offers remote and online extension services, and an eMarket platform for smallholders to sell their produce and for buying agricultural input supplies at better prices.
Agricultural experts help farmers overcome technical challenges, offering advice on how to maintain their crops and how to respond appropriately to climate emergencies. This information is delivered via pictures, videos, voice and texts through the app.
Input retailers use the Chamka app for the virtual marketplace platform to promote and post products to sell. Input suppliers can manage their products and receive sale orders directly from farmers.
Progress to date
As of 2022 there are more than 42,000 users already registered and active in using Chamka App to access online training videos. Around 6,000 users have used extension service support through the support service and around 4,000 users have already accessed the virtual market to purchase input supply via the app.
Chamka is currently rolled out in 20 provinces in Cambodia. In this initial phase, Chamka mainly focuses on extension services to provide direct technical support for farmers and virtual markets for farmers to access input supply via the app. Chamka’s vision for the long term is to support not just smallholder farmers but also big enterprises with large scale production that require more automation and technology to support farm productivity on a daily basis.
Chamka was developed in 2020 in cooperation with the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs – Korea (MAFRA), Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries –Cambodia (MAFF), the Agriculture Service Programme for Innovation, Resilience and Extension (ASPIRE) and SwissContact. Chamka is also in collaboration with GIZ Agrinnovation Fund (AIF) to support traceability and access to markets for farmers.
About
Jiva is a technology-enabled platform and mobile app that improves the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and transforms agricultural supply chains in a shared value model. Jiva is a holistic platform that offers free personalized agronomic advice, extends loans for farm inputs, sells and delivers inputs and purchases crops at harvest. Jiva is backed by Olam International, a global food and agri-business company.
Capability and features
Farmers are offered free advisory services as well as access to ‘micro-collectors’ (micro-aggregators who are often farmers themselves). Many former third-party buyers become micro-collectors on behalf of Jiva, collecting crops from farmers in exchange for a regular income. Jiva has a standalone application designed for micro-collectors Through an assigned micro-collector, farmers access low-cost loans to buy inputs through Jiva’s inputs store and delivery service.
Jiva operates a buy-now-pay-at-harvest credit model, creating a “closed loop” in which farmers buy inputs on credit, pay back with their harvest and guarantee Jiva the sale.
Jiva uses a dual physical and digital model, which allows their technology and product teams to rapidly optimize and update the advisory, pricing, routing and other services to meet live conditions on the ground.
Jiva uses data generated by the product to assess the credit model, tweak and evolve the farmer advisory service and provide a wider range of products on their e-commerce store. Jiva is a profit-for-purpose venture, so the more data they collect, the more value they can share with farmers and micro-collectors.
Jiva uses a deep upstream procurement model, powered by an expanding network of local entrepreneurs, creating relationships with farmers at the source.
Progress to date
As of March 2022, Jiva has about 70,000 users. It has procured more than 100,000 tons of corn from smallholder farmers and provided inputs to about 4,000 farmers
Jiva Ag is currently operating all business units in Indonesia and a separate advisory service, AgriCentral, in India. After initial success with corn in Indonesia, Jiva Ag intends to improve the advisory service and build robust data capturing mechanisms, as well as launch the finance, inputs and offtakes businesses in India leveraging AgriCentral’s relationship with over 5 million farmers.
About
Smartfarms Network is an impact organization engaged in creating sustainable livelihood for smallholder farmers in Asia. Through its innovative “mySmartfarm” digital platform (a combination of a web portal + mobile app) and network of Smarthub farmer service centers, it intends to raise farmer incomes and reduce risk.
Due to fragmented nature and last mile issues, small farms are often excluded from economic growth. mySmartfarm uses a holistic approach called CARES to build farm communities driven by common purpose and shared learnings. CARES stands for:
Connect – direct connectivity between farmer and input manufacturers, insurers, financiers, etc.
Advisory – customised farm management advice for each user.
Risk Management – training on how to manage diseases, pests and other risks.
Empower – building cohesive communities and creating collective strength.
Sustain – build sustainable livelihoods for all farmers.
mySmartfarm is free for farmers to use, with communities experiencing more benefits as more farmers come onboard. Smartfarms instead generates revenue through corporate subscriptions, as well as making a small margin on what is sold through the platform.
Capability and features
Farmers can use the mobile app or a specialised hotline to receive customized farm management advice. The mobile app gives them access to their own data, as well as a direct connection to input/output companies. This results in higher farmgate prices, lower input costs and higher farm productivity.
Input manufacturers have a direct connection with farmers and access to data on farm performance. This creates a low-cost distribution channel and higher impact on farm performance through direct connectivity and predictive performance data analysis.
Governments gain access to farm data and outreach for Government sponsored programs and initiatives.
Progress to date
mySmartfarm has over 100 farmers to date, thanks to a successful farmer adoption test in the Philippines. Smartfarms Network Pte Ltd are currently prototyping the MVP for digital platform, and have the support of one of the largest corporates in the Philippines in building an integrated feed gate to market supply chain solution for their hog feed business.
About
Talad was established in 2018 to enable all parties within the global agricultural sector to connect with each other. The Talad App helps farmers find and hire farm workers. Additionally, it allows users to buy & sell agricultural related products and hire mechanics to fix machinery. Through the direct connection of all parties, Talad aims to reduce the cost of buying and selling agricultural related products and services. Smallholder farmers benefit from increased incomes, while mechanics and farm workers can increase their customer base.
Capability and features
Talad is a mobile phone application that enables farmers to find farm workers (manual labor or with machineries). A built-in notification feature will alert users about upcoming scheduled events. Farmers can also view up-to-date crop prices from different buyers to see where they can sell their yield for the highest price. Other features include the capability to buy & sell agriculture products directly to end users without a middleman, and an Online Agri Info Hub where farmers can learn up-to-date farming techniques, which help them generate more income and reduce pollution.
Farm workers can search for farmers in their area who are in need of their services, as well as mechanics who can fix their machinery. Land measurement tools allow users to pinpoint the exact location where the services should be provided while calculating the total area of the land. This gives both parties an accurate total area, which will be the base for calculating a fair payment.
Progress to date
Over 70,000 farmers, farm workers, and mechanics are already using Talad App, and the Buy & Sell board has over 3,000 products.
Talad App has been awarded “Best New Market” Award from National Innovation Agency of Thailand during the AgTech Battle 2019.
About
ListenField’s mission is to provide comprehensive farming solutions that can significantly cut costs, enhance yield quality and stabilize yields, using their API precision farming technology platform. Their mobile app, FarmAI, uses IoT integration, predictive analytics for climate and crop growth, and analysis of satellite imagery to give farmers actionable data for decision-making in every step of the farming process.
Capability and features
ListenField’s core technology empowers their clients to:ListenField’s mission is to provide comprehensive farming solutions that can significantly cut costs, enhance yield quality and stabilize yields, using their API precision farming technology platform. Their mobile app, FarmAI, uses IoT integration, predictive analytics for climate and crop growth, and analysis of satellite imagery to give farmers actionable data for decision-making in every step of the farming process.
ListenField’s core technology empowers their clients to:
ListenField’s goal is to enable farming communities to construct a business intelligence dashboard, derived from ListenField’s comprehensive and automated digitized database. This dashboard will help monitor crop health, anticipate weather patterns and assess as well as predict crop yield and productivity. This platform will help farming communities manage and monitor their output and crop quality in a timely and cost-effective manner. Their technology will also facilitate inspections to obtain third-party sustainability certifications, which have considerable commercial value for farmers.
Progress to date
To date, FarmAI is being used by about 30,000 farmers in Thailand, directly and through their clients. ListenField was one of the finalists of the 2019 SEED Low Carbon Award, which is supported by UNDP and UNEP, and has partnerships with several organic farming communities and the Bank of Thailand.
The IFC has also selected ListenField as a partner for a project involving rice-farming communities in Vietnam. The project is also being supported by Angel’s Fine Foods, an Australian distributor of gourmet food products
About
Cropin is an AI and data-led agritech organization that provides digital solutions to key stakeholders of the agriculture value chain for both transaction and insights. SmartRisk is their predictive and prescriptive solution for risk monitoring, mitigation and forecasting intelligence. The AI and machine learning based platform detects cropping patterns and predicts the future of the crop, highlighting the risks and opportunities for agri-stakeholders. SmartFarm is their SaaS-based farm management platform to drive efficiency, achieve predictability and ensure sustainability.
Capability and features
SmartRisk is built on a powerful agri-AI engine with proprietary algorithms that enables accurate crop detection, land estimation, crop stage and health analysis, and yield forecast. Key actors in the agri-food value chain can make informed data-driven decisions that improve agricultural output by minimizing risks during the crop cultivation cycle, promote smarter and more efficient sourcing and procurement.
SmartRisk can also improve the loan collection process, optimize the loan disbursement process, preemptively assess non-performing assets, perform crop growth analysis to monitor risk in real- time, and expand lending portfolios to new regions with higher confidence. This is valuable for financial institutions, insurance companies, government bodies, commodity traders, and sourcing managers.
Lenders using SmartRisk can detect cropping patterns, monitor crop health, estimate crop yield, and also establish the historical performance of a farm or plot. SmartRisk makes loan disbursement processes more streamlined, in addition to providing lenders with event triggers on a farmer or plot level.
SmartRisk can be used by government bodies to efficiently predict crop yields in a given location for multiple types of crops to achieve varied objectives, including such studying analyzing crop productivity, nationwide yield estimation, policy planning and implementation of policies, and accurate payment of crop insurance claims, among others.
The SaaS platform, SmartFarm, is a complete farm management solution. SmartFarm enables digitizing, reporting, MIS and analytics on a single platform, alert logging and management, geo-tagging for area audits, satellite and weather input-based plot monitoring for risk mitigation and crop performance for yield predictability. SmartFarm is used by governments, development agencies, farmers, and other stakeholders.
Cropin operates on a B2B business model by catering to agri-businesses, governments, development agencies and NGOs at different levels of the ecosystem who engage with farmers. Cropin’s business model is a per acre, per user model.
Progress to date
In 2021, Cropin raised US$20 million in a Series C funding round led by ABC World Asia to advance SmartRisk and further strengthen its AI capabilities.
As of 2021, SmartRisk AI has processed more than 160 million hectares of land and reached over 7 million farmers globally, with the potential to impact 70 million farmers in the next 3-5 years.
SmartRisk’s proprietary ML algorithms enabled one of the world’s largest retailers to source high-quality grapes from farms at close proximity, thereby effectively cutting down expenses incurred in logistics and operational hassles.
A globally renowned beverage company leveraged SmartRisk’s intelligent crop detection capabilities to detect high-growth sorghum farms in order to set-up warehousing and processing centers in Nigeria.
Upcoming initiatives include identification of stress and crop stages, expansion of Cropin’s reach in Southeast Asia, accurate detection of more crops, along with their health & yield estimates.
Awards
About
HUB is a digital platform that collects, manages and shares data on smallholder farmers to expand their access to the agricultural value chain, by leveraging satellite data and AI. HUB’s software solutions are designed to be ‘plug and play’; they can be connected to customer’s management information systems through APIs (application program interface). Once clients have the software, which includes mobile data collection, credit risk scoring and farmland monitoring, they can also access the remote sensing data which provides information on the crop activity of individual farms.
Capability and features
The HUB Digital Platform includes an Agri-Lending Suite which has a mobile data collection app, credit scoring system and farmland monitoring dashboard which all incorporate Harvesting’s remote sensing and AI technology to deliver actionable insight on smallholder farmers. By using the Agri-Lending Suite, lenders can expand their market to include borrowers without a credit history while improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of their lending operations.
Cooperatives and other aggregators of smallholder farmers can use different aspects of the HUB including farmland monitoring, credit assessment farmer management, training management, communication with farmers, and buyer and supplier management.
By digitizing and improving the data and farmer management capabilities of cooperatives, HUB can help cooperatives become more productive and efficient, helping to assure their sustainability as well as that of their members and other providers in the value chain.
Input manufacturers that provide credit to smallholder farmers can use HUB’s agri-lending suite, farmer management, and farmer communication features to better identify, assess and monitor customers purchasing inputs on credit. They can expand their market by cost-effectively identifying, assessing and monitoring potential customers who need financing to purchase supplies.
Progress to date
Harvesting and the HUB Digital Platform has empowered over 5,000 farmers, giving them actionable insight on crop activity and connecting them to other providers in the agriculture value chain.
Harvesting are working with CGAP (WorldBank) on a funded pilot project with Pride Uganda that resulted in the country’s first credit risk scoring system. FMO, the Dutch development bank, is helping to fund a pilot project with Maha MFI in Myanmar. ILO funded a pilot study in India. Mercy Corps Social Ventures recently became an investor to help the development and deployment of the HUB worldwide.
About
Ricult improves the lives of smallholder farmers in Thailand through a data-driven mobile platform that helps farmers improve farming productivity and reduce cost, resulting in higher income. Leveraging machine learning to model weather forecast, soil data, and satellite imagery, Ricult provides data-driven recommendations and insights to farmers to make the best possible farming decision to increase their income. Ricult technology has been shown to
increase the farmers’ income by over 50% in Thailand. Their model is sustainable and impactful, making the app free for farmers, while using the data to empower different stakeholders such as banks to create farmers credit score and agricultural mills for supply chain monitoring.
Capability and features
Through a smartphone app, farmers can get access to key farming information such as rainfall, temperature, humidity, and sunlight forecasts. Satellite imagery to helps farmers scout for problem in the field , while social forums/chat allows farmers to ask farming/pricing questions of agronomists and other farmers.
Extension workers use the Ricult dashboard and management system to manage and monitor farmers and keep track of farmers’ data. They also receive agronomic tips & weather forecast that can be passed on to farmers.
Lenders benefit from the risk monitoring and credit score features, based on the data that farmers input and weather forecast that can have huge effect on potential crop yield. This helps lenders identify a farmers’ ability to repay a loan, as well as seeing an aggregated overview of the farmers in the portfolio. Once high risk farmers are identified, field agents can be sent to offer assistance.
Progress to date
Ricult has been awarded the best Agricultural Tech in Thailand by the Royal Thai Government,
been named the best Social Enterprise in Southeast Asia and Oceania in the Global Social Venture Competition, won the Fintech Disrupt Challenge organized by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and awarded Innovative Agribusiness by United Nations Industrial Developmental Organization.
Over 10,000 farmers have used the platform, and Ricult has partnerships with large banks, telecommunications companies, and a range of large agricultural institutions.
Ricult’s next step is to open the platform to all of Thailand and Pakistan.
About
Saillog utilizes artificial intelligence and computer vision algorithms for remote crop disease and pest management. Saillog developed Agrio, a smartphone app that enhances biosecurity for farmers. The Agrio smartphone app provides guidance on integrated pest management, surveillances the spread of pests and diseases, dispatches warning alerts for impending infestations in affected areas and high risk zones, and enables communication between farmers and agriculture experts.
Capability and features
Agrio is a mobile application that uses a deep learning-based computer vision algorithm that surpasses human capability and integrates the knowledge of numerous experts. Agrio’s basic system feature is free and identifies crop diseases, pests, nutritional deficiencies, and abiotic stresses and provides treatment suggestions across multiple methods (i.e., biological, cultural, organic, and chemical). Users can opt to submit their images to a forum where they communicate directly with in-house agricultural experts for additional guidance. Agrio provides farmers with quality precision agriculture and supplements the lack of agriculture extension experts worldwide.
Within Agrio, users can subscribe to AgrioShield, which is the first artificially intelligent global alert system that generates warning alerts to farmers and inspectors based on geographical spread and forecasting models. AgrioShield is offered on a sliding scale depending on the income of the nation.
Saillog also has a B2G model that provides governments and nonprofits access to a macro-level dashboard solution. The dashboard solution improves productivity, prioritizes inspections, tracks the spread of diseases and pests, increases agriculture yields through reductions in pre-harvest losses, and supplies adjunct evidences for risk assessment.
Progress to date
Agrio has accumulated over 80,000 downloads organically. The smartphone application supports 15 languages and has diagnosed over 400,000 images through its artificial intelligence algorithms. Saillog won the Roddenberry Catalyst Fund, along with other prizes and grants. Saillog was a first-responder in the fall armyworm outbreak in India; the algorithms detected the infestation and the artificially intelligent global alert system sent notifications (with written preventative measures) to farmers in infected areas and high risk zones.
Saillog is developing a speech-to-text solution (with translation capabilities) that will enable interactions between users and agriculture experts through voice and video for those who are unable to read or write.
About
Grameen Foundation developed FarmerLink, which uses digital technology and field agents to provide farmers with complimentary resources. These include agricultural training via tablets or mobile phones, connections to high-value markets, support for organic certification, early warning alerts for extreme weather and pests, training in financial management and access to finance. The same tool is used across each stage by each partner, so people can see what the farmers need, allowing for better assistance.
Capability and features
Farmerlink geotags farmers and registers their location, allowing them to become part of the early warning system. This triangulates data from the ground to create extreme weather alerts and pest detection, allowing them to mitigate and prepare for these issues in advance. The SMS system is also used to provide advice every two weeks.
Extension workers use Farmerlink to assist with farmer profiling and monitoring their adoption of farm management plans. This transparency makes it easier to give recommendations, which in turn lead to better practices and higher incomes.
Government are able to monitor their own programs and beneficiaries, and use FarmerLink as an early warning system for pests and diseases.
Lenders have access to farmer profiles, dashboards, grouping of farmers, and can monitor their own programs. Lenders can leverage data from other extension workers (such as government and buyers), and are able to better understand their customers.
Progress to date
FarmerLink has reached over 27,500 farmers with their SMS-based agriculture extension service and early warning system, with 70% of the farmers finding the system to be very influential to their farm practices. Partners also saw favourable outcomes in operational efficiency with the introduction of digital tools in the farm inspection processes for certification. A 62% time reduction was gained in the process which meant field inspectors can double farmer visits with the mobile tools compared to current operations.
The Philippine Coconut Authority and Grameen Foundation are in talks to develop a plan to extend the use of FarmerLink more widely in the country. People’s Bank of Caraga continues to use the Farmerlink tool to support their lending operations to coconut and cacao farmers.
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