ODAPES

The Market for Digital Agriculture is set-up in a way, which excludes smallholder farmers, i.e. 94% of the 570 Million farmers worldwide. This systemic problem is what we trying to solve at ODAPES.

Our solution helps local farmers cooperatives to implement their own Digital Agriculture platform. The hybrid model (Non-Profit and For-Profit) enables the digital inclusion and education of farmers by providing an Open-source template for a platform with all basic services.

On top, it also provides agronomic optimization and GiS algorithms through a payable API-Service aiming at strengthening the sustainable farming practices and cross-finance the Non-Profit part.

Of course, we hope that ever more farmers become part of this market, as they grow their skills and become financially stronger. Our vision is to democratize digital agriculture.

Currently, we are piloting in Colombia and services 80 small farms. In the next 18 months, we plan to reach about 30’000 farmers.

Our Agriculture system is facing massive challenges, such as land degradation, deterioration of nutrition quality (IPES), loss of biodiversity and extreme crop risks (Biodiversity International), while it needs to produce 56% more food under the constraints of climate change (IPCC). Digital Agriculture technology promises to come at a rescue by improving resource efficiency by up to 60%. However, the current set-up of this market ties access to Digital Agriculture platforms and services closely to large-scale commercial interests – either in form of direct pricing or agrochemical consumption.

This causes two problems: Firstly, out of the more than 570 Million farmers worldwide, 94% of are smallholders (below the 5 Hectares, FAO), to which these services are inaccessible. Second, the simplified, one-fits-all agronomic approaches of these commercial platforms are unsuitable for regenerative and sustainable agronomic techniques, such as agroforestry or biological crop treatments (PROJECT DRAWDOWN). As an overall result, digitization in agriculture may even increase the gap between large-scale industrial farming based on chemical treatment and small-scale, regenerative and sustainable agricultural practices. We are facing a systemic problem. 

This economic and technical inaccessibility of small-scale farmers to Digital Agriculture is the problem we are trying to solve.

We believe strengthening the local communities is key for a more sustainable and economically just agriculture. In Latin America, our initial focus region, they are represented in the form of 32’000 farmer’s cooperatives (FAO), uniting 16Mi Smallholder farmers. They know their local conditions, crops and problems and are in the position to implement and scale digital solutions in the region, given the right tools and support.

ODAPES helps them to implement their own Digital Agriculture platform and provide risk mitigation and efficiency improvement services, as well as agronomic learning content, to their associates. The system is based on a Headless architecture and includes four parts:

1. The Head of the System is an Open-Source template for a complete, free-of-charge Digital Agriculture Platform. The platform does all basic services and can be implemented and customized as an independent clone by each cooperative.

2. The Learning part is a central interactive blog and forum, where learning content is shared and discussed.

3. The system offers low-cost agronomic and meteorologic information services from 3rd party API’s.

4) The Core of the system, hosted by us, contains agronomic optimization and GIS algorithms, which are sold as services and provide direct resource reduction recommendations. 

The direct beneficiary of our solution are the smallholder farmers. Today, they are often in the dilemma between using old, inefficient farming methods or using digital agriculture services tied to chemical consumption, which may compromise the long-term sustainability of their land. With ODAPES, they will gain free access to independent agronomic services from top-agronomists. According to our long-term market experience, this alone can improve resource efficiency by up to 60%, which make a vast difference in the live of a small farmer.

As secondary beneficiaries, the local community will benefit. Each small farmer feeds around 15 people (see section “Goals” for details). These people currently suffer often from insatiable food supply and partly from undernutrition due to harvest losses. Further, food produced on poor soil can lack important micronutrients and consequently cause important health issues. If regional farmers are in a position to produce healthier and more diverse groceries, as well as lower their harvest loss risks, the community can greatly improve their overall health condition.

Finally, note that agriculture is responsible for about ¼ of all greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity is at a serious threat. 60% less resource use means an equivalent reduction in these hazards.

Biology, Climate, Crop requirements and farming practices are very complex systems and vary a lot from one region to another. It is intuitively clear that there is no One-fits-all solution for crop treatment. Yet, the industrialization of agriculture did exactly this - global standardization.

We believe that it is of utmost importance that the next industrial revolution, i.e. Digital Agriculture, does not repeat this error. Farmers should have access to high-quality agronomic knowledge and services independently of their scale, crop variety and financial strength. Economic progress must not be put against environmental sustainability.

Our most important source of innovation is our vision and the way we approach the problem. We are not doing it for the sake of creating a next financial unicorn. Also, we do not propose a radically new technology, as the problem of climate change and fragility of our food systems is truly not the lack of available technologies. The problem is a very practical one - time!

The market of Digital Agriculture currently leaves out 94% of all farmers because they don’t fit into the expected adoption timeline (i.e. P&L). These 535 Million farmers need time to develop their own understanding of the digital world, acquire the knowledge and adapt their farming practices. Note that we will always have this time conflict in Digital Agriculture, where we are at the intersection between nature (crop cycles = 1 year) and the digital world (product lifecycle = months).

And exactly here ODAPES is different. We have a Non-Profit part, which has the sole purpose of lifting the farmers into the digital era, and a For-Profit part, where we can provide top agronomic and meteorological services, which are widely proven in professional industrial farming and consulting.

We propose the idea of Open-source because this approach has proven that it can handle extreme variety of parallel innovations and make fast progress.

ODAPES  integrates existing technologies such as data analysis, AI, GIS, GNSS, and spatial technologies to solve one of the key constraints for sustainable agricultural  production, which is to convert available data into simple information that any farmer could use to make better management decisions for his or her operation. Our platform allows integrating multiple data layers, collected either manually or automatically, and doing simple and complex transformations for any user, anywhere in the world,  to use, openly and free-of-charge.  Technologies used to collect data are wide, from soil and plant sensor data, from different platforms (terrestrial, drone, satellite) to manual sampling, using smartphones for positioning and data collection (pictures), among others. The integration of legacy data into the system is a key element for ODAPES and the use of smartphones to scan and upload available information in paper format is also considered. The innovation is focused in offering an inclusive, clean and simple system to convert data into information, including interpretation and site-specific prescriptions and recommendations.

The technologies involved such as GIS, remote and proximal sensing, are used around the world, but, usually, individually, not integrated with other technologies and mostly for diagnostic purposes. There are several barriers for users to access these technologies: some of them are very expensive, many need specialized personnel to handle, they were developed for large operations, and their use are usually associated to large transnational companies. ODAPES uses and integrates existing technologies not only for diagnostic but mostly for prescriptions, aimed to improve efficiency and sustainability.

An additional prove is that Dr. Rodrigo Ortega works with his company NeoAG since 20 years in the field of precision agriculture consulting. In this business, the exact same algorithms we implement in ODAPES are applied, just in a semi-automated form. The results are remarkable and proven so that NeoAG gained a very positive image and today is sought by many of Chile's top fruit growers and exporters. ODAPES puts these algorithms on a scalable basis and makes it available to a much wider range of farmers.

The ODAPES system provides an Open-Source Digital Agriculture platform together with digital learning content in a Non-profit model to the eco-system of small hood farmers and their associations. Our immediate goal is to make farmer’s cooperatives setting up their own Digital Agriculture platform and thereby massively increase the number of users of such services. Through the digital learning content, these farmers should increase their understanding of agronomic and agro-meteorological management and gradually adopt more sophisticated services. Within a term of 3-5 years we expect the numbers of digital agriculture users to increase significantly and after an additional period of the same length, we expect them to be much better skilled and digitally literate.

The ODAPES system also includes a commercial offer of low-cost agronomic information services (e.g. virtual weather stations or agro-meteorological weather forecast) and high-quality agronomic and GIS modelling services. These tools shall enable small and mid-size local agro-service businesses to provide commercial services, which target the adoption of more sustainable and efficient farming practices. In the long term, we envision that the share of regenerative and sustainable farming methods gains share market against the chemical-based industrial farming.

The below Theory-of-Change map shows in detail how these parts are linked. The blue bubbles inform how the progress of the respective outputs or outcomes are measured. The rhombi shapes represent potential barriers, where the respective color classifies them from low risk (green) to high risk (red). The section about barriers will provide more details.

Currently, we are piloting the solution in the City of Cimitarra, Santander, CO, where we provide agro-meteorological services (Virtual Weather Station and agro-specific weather forecast) to about 80 small and medium farms. Our main goal is to test the role of the LOCAL DIGITAL ADVOCATE and how impact to the farmers happens in practice.

From August 2020 on we plan to rollout and the solution to other communities in Latin America. We have already great demand for the system, so we are confident that within one year, we will be implemented in 50 farmer’s cooperatives, which corresponds to approximately 30’000 users (farmers).

For the scaling phase in year 2 through 5, we will target the 32’000 Farmers cooperatives in Latin America, our initial focus region. We aspire the ambitious number of 1500 implementations, which may correspond to 1 Million smallholder farmers which will use our solution on a daily basis.

We plan to have 30’000 farmers using our system and recommendations on a daily basis by mid 2021. Thereby, they should be able to drastically reduce the risk of yield losses, which is the worst case and often the financial ruin for a farmer. At the same time, their resource efficiency may increase so they are able to produce the same amount of food by using around 60% less chemical inputs. This has a large impact on their budgets and thus their overall financial conditions. Furthermore, it grants the long-term soil health and sustainability. By the end of 2025, we plan to increase this number to 1 Million smallholder farmers with the same impact.

It is important to mention that the social and environmental impact goes much beyond the number of farmers using the system. Assuming that the average smallholder farmer cultivates about 3,5HA of land, and one person’s diet uses 0,23HA of land (FAO – referring to a middle income country), each farmer feeds more than 15 people. Hence, if 1 Million farmers can produce healthier and more sustainable food, as well as being less exposed to yield-loss risks, the equivalent to 15 Million people is positively impacted. Some of the direct benefits are less food price volatility and hunger, along with healthier food (more variety, less chemical residuals, better micronutrients).

On the environmental side, we estimate from experience an immediate 40-60% reduction of environmentally hazardous chemical input material.

According to our Theory of Change, we face the following barriers, in the order from most to least important:

1. Are Farmers Associations (Cooperativas) able and willing to contract software programmers to set-up their Head System?

2. Are Farmers willing to upload their Data to their Community’s Odapes Head System? Do they trust?

3. Are Local/Regenerative Agro Service Businesses willing to use ODAPES Core Algorithms and pay for it?

4. Are Farmers willing to spend time to learn about the Digital Solutions? Do they understand the advantage of this in the first place?

5. Are we able to scale the use of ODAPES enough to make an impact?

6. How much support does each project need and are we able to provide that?

7. What resistance from the incumbent chemical companies will the Local/Regenerative Agro Service Businesses face? Will this impede their growth? 

8. Are Local/Regenerative Agro Service Businesses and Farmers Associations willing to publish the codes of their adaptions (open Source). Are there enough skilled people (Agro + programming) to trigger an open-source eco-system?

The above specified barriers will be addressed by the following actions (same index):

1. We define a clear, smooth set-up procedure and negotiate flat rates with programmers and cloud companies. 

2. Each Association project will have a LOCAL DIGITAL ADVOCATE – typically an Agronomic professor or renowned consultant – who understands that ODAPES, promotes and supports it locally and created trust.

3. -- No Concrete Solution yet --

4. In this part, the LOCAL DIGITAL ADVOCATE has a key role. He needs to make sure the farmers understand it and acquire the skills needed through the learning content.

5. We need support here in the form of contacts to governments, NGO’s, associations and other. We also wish support from the MIT Solve community or from other stakeholders.

6. This question is currently in test in a Pilot project in the region of  Cimitarra, Santander, CO, with a LOCAL DIGITAL ADVOCATE.

7. -- No Concrete Solution yet – we did not yet study this topic in detail --

8. The approach is that as soon as organizations use ODAPES open-source for commercial purposes, they need to commit to publish their code changes in Github (with some exceptions), as a quasi-price. We are checking currently the feasibility of such a License Agreement.

2 Part-Time (Co-Founders)

5 Full-Time Developers (2 Backend, 1 UI/UX, 1 QM, 1 PM) as contractors

Michael C. Rubin has grown up on a small farm in Switzerland. Today, the Data Scientist by training, lives in Brazil and serves as a General Manager Latin America for Pessl Instruments, one of the world-leaders for IoT sensors for Agriculture. As a such, Michael has an excellent knowledge and overview over the market of Digital Agriculture, its players and the gaps. Given his roots, its contrasts to the current client base (large Brazilian soya farms) and his technical background, Michael also understands in detail what is needed to change things. Michael dedicated his carrier to solving climate change a long time ago and he founded in 2019 Drawdown Labs, a R&D laboratory which develops technology ventures mitigating climate change (www.drawdownlabs.com)

Rodrigo Ortega was born in a rural area in Chile. He was educated in the public system. Got his undergraduate degree in Agronomy in Chile and his Master and PhD degrees in Soil Science in the US.  He holds an academic position at the Technical University Federico Santa María (Chile). His main areas of research are data analytics, precision agriculture, and sustainable management. He is an international consultant (mainly at Latin American countries), and the founder of two companies: Neoag (devoted to precision agriculture) and Agriservice (devoted to soil microbiology and biochemistry).  His focus is to develop sustainable agricultural management based on timely and site-specific information. For that, he has created  and adapted several algorithms for interpretation and prescription.

Currently, ODAPES has the following partnerships, which are an integral part of our solution:

• Pessl Instruments  is one of the leading providers of IoT sensors for agriculture and complementary information services. Their solutions are integrated in ODAPES by API and are part of the commercial offer. This provides us access to top-quality field weather and soil data (www.metos.at)

• Meteoblue is one of the leading precision metrology institutes from Switzerland. The institute provides some cutting edge weather data modelling solutions like the Virtual Weather Station or 35 years historic weather data and achieves the market’s best modelling precision in rural areas of Latin america. The solutions are integrated in ODAPES by API and are part of the commercial offer (www.meteoblue.com)

• Since 16/6/2020, we have the verbal confirmation, that the EMBRAPA BRAZIL (Latin America’s largest public agricultural research corporation) will use ODAPES for a project to be implemented by 2022

• Latin American Association for Precision Agriculture. A scientific and professional organization to advance and promote the use of Precision Agriculture technologies within the Latin American Region.

• Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, through its business school and electronics department.

• Colegio Integrado del Carare (Cimitarra,Santander)

• Tropical crops group (TROPEN). University of Bonn, Germany.

• Microlink Colombia is a leading integrator for IoT and communication infrastructure in rural Colombia. Microlink is also a Partner in the Colombian Government program “The fourth Industrial Revolution” and plans to bring ODAPES as a partner platform to this program.

Our Business Model can be seen in the enclosed Business Model Canvas.

Important to highlight is that the ODAPES Business model has a Non-Profit part, whose objective is to to develop digital farming inclusion. This part follows the yellow path throughout the Canvas.

The For-Profit part of the business model follows the blue path.

The Green path are elements that are at the intersection of both For-profit and Nonprofit.

We hope to get some support in one or more of the following: 

• We have relatively little experience and networks in the NGO/Public sector and in general in all non-profit sectors. However, this is an essential part of our product. We need support in the form of Networking, mentoring, and community inclusion.

• We have little experience with Open-source communities. MIT community might be a very valuable support network. Here we need support.  

• MIT AI and Meteorology research can help us to explore new frontiers in Climate and weather modelling in tropical/rural areas (today very limited). This would allow us to generate valuable information and services for very low cost for rural communities (i.e. without expensive Weather Stations).

Funding for platform improvement, if the investors share our mission and mindset.

We would like to find partners that share our vision of closing the digital gap that exists for small farmers around the world. The means to achieve this objective are very important to us, because the solution has to be inclusive, opened to everyone, take care of the legacy data, and considering local expertise for designing site-specific solutions. We would like to create a community around Odapes, where digital education, at different levels is a must. Our areas of expertise are more to the final application, therefore we would like partners complementing our weak spots, particularly in terms of creating and mentoring digital communities, digital education, as well as in specific areas detailed below.

• We have relatively little experience and networks in the NGO/Public sector and in general in all non-profit sectors. However, this is an essential part of our product. We need support in the form of Networking, mentoring, and community inclusion.

• We have little experience with Open-source communities. MIT community might be a very valuable support network. Here we need support.  

• MIT AI and Meteorology research can help us to explore new frontiers in Climate and weather modelling in tropical/rural areas (today very limited). This would allow us to generate valuable information and services for very low cost for rural communities (i.e. without expensive Weather Stations).