AGROS

In Latinamerica, just 13% of smallholder farmers get access to financial support and loans, due to lack of accurate information and uncertainty involved in their farming activities. So smallholder farmers cannot afford all the production cost, working just at 40% of yield potential, and lowering the quality of production, having no access to agricultural training, farming inputs and cash availability. Stakeholders like microfinance institutions don't get enough information from each farmer, so they avoid the risk with higher interest rates (the "poverty tax"). To solve this problem AGROS was born, offering 2 solutions: AGROS ID: an agronomic information bureau to get historical information of each farm based on satellite images, weather conditions analysis and field gathered data, and reducing uncertainty. And AGROS Advisor is a tool that uses previous information to contact a remote specialized agronomic advisor that brings recommendations based on the information gathered by each farmer.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, more than 3 billion people live in rural areas, and roughly 2.5 billion people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, representing 78% of the total poverty population. 

Family farmers (FF) form the backbone of agricultural production in most countries and sell nearly 70% of the food consumed worldwide. Nevertheless, the same farmers account for half of the world's undernourished people, which is, as we say, the "Family Farming Paradox." 

At the same time, climate change has added new challenges to family farming, making technical assistance, financial and global market connection services more needed than ever.  

Based on World Bank 2016 "Identification for Development Strategic Framework" paper, family farmers who are unable to prove their creditworthiness or validate vital economic credentials (for example, income and transaction histories, ownership of land crop types, geolocalization of farm size) are more likely to face barriers accessing formal services or connecting to the global economy. Consequently, just 13% of farmers have access to formal credit, and 20% of them receive technical assistance and are part of a global value chain (who usually get 2x times more incomes). 

To aim FF needs of technical and financial assistance, we develop the platform AGROS Advisor to provide scalable services, expert advice, and technical support to FF and Agros DataMarket to create an agronomic data market facilitates FF information ́s to financial institutions.

1. AGROS Advisor is a remote agronomic advisory service that brings customized and specific recommendations to farmers, working with farmer's sons (Agroleaders) as local partners. We process the information using machine learning techniques, precision agriculture technologies, and supported by agronomic engineers working remotely to scale technological assistance solutions, increasing the productivity of the specialist, the coverage, and drastically reducing the cost and time management.

2. AGROS ID is fed by the information from Agros Advisor and combined with geolocalization and machine learning tools to build and provide an agronomic information bureau of the agriculture value chain to improve farmers' creditworthiness and access to information. This information reduces the uncertainty of productivity in the risk analysis, offering better forecast, productivity, historical and other services to smallholder farmers, government institutions. 

The combination of both services provides personalized technical assistance at little cost, remote expert advice, and using technology, create a historical database of productivity. 

We validated our MVP during the first year (2019) with FF located in Peru in the value chain of rice, mango, and lemon. They are 50 years old and mainly are men who take care of 4 children (average). They live in a small house inside his field, and his area is 1 or 2 ha approximately.

They don't know what to do when new plagues invade, and the assistance is not enough to improve his productivity, even though they manage to sell his products. Selling the product they earn around USD 120.00 monthly helps them build their houses and send their children to school. They have been trying to get a loan, but they are not subject to credit, which is why they have to sell as soon as possible, and all the money they earn is to maintain their family. 

Today, 120 farmers have received a loan for the first time, and 400 farmers were successfully connected to global markets in the USA and Netherlands. As a result of increasing yield and better market prices, they have got 30% more profit at the end of the season.

Technical assistance, creditworthiness identity and financial exclusion are linked problems, so we developed a different approach based on improving farmer chances to increase profits through using AGROS Advisor, and then connect the information we generate with service providers and stakeholders to offer a reliable productivity history.
An AGROS farmer, has an agronomic footprint (registered in a Blockchain Ledger) of their activities, yields, and quality, generating a trusted historical record. The critical element which makes AGROS scalable is our AgriLeader program with farmers' sons, our field agents that connect farms and gather geo-referenced information, improving rural job opportunities, and reducing rural migration.

Our technology roadmap follows this pattern: 

2018. AGROS Risk Tool Web APP launched: We create an engine to use georeferenced information (currently gathered by executives in financial institutions), historic satellite processes information (vegetation indexes, cloud correction, atmospheric correction), weather historic hiperlocated information and government predial information, apply our machine learning and extract insights to improve risk management activities. 

2019 AGROS Advisor. We have launched a mobile app where farmers could weather and field analysis insights dayli and weekdly (weather alerts, vegetation index alerts) and farmers could call to AGROS and deliver a voice message with questions and doubts about farming management. Afther that we connect them to the account of our advisors database (for now advisors who work for associations, NGO's and on-demand advisors hired), and then farmers received a recommendation based on the analysis of the previous information.

2020. AGROS Advisor Smart Labeling. We added image processing engine in the mobile app to make easier to give the right information to advisors, and reduce the gap (60% farmers in Peru never have received technical assistance or training). 

2020. AGROS ID. We are developing a blockchain supported agronomic identity of the farmer to improve creditworhness of information and improve connection to stakeholders and services. 

After one year working, we have enabled strong relationships with 3 main actors of the value chain: - Farming Associations: In Latin America, the associative model is improving the traditional farming value chain, grouping smallholders farmers to get access to better prices for agricultural inputs and farming services, so we are working with 7 main associations related to banana, mango, rice and lemon crops, working with 878 smallholder farmers. We offer them technological services for free (satellite images, weather forecasting, communication tools for advisory services) and they register smallholder farmer information (name, id document, geo-position). We use this information to improve our database. Microfinance Institutions: we are working with 2 microfinance institutions in Peru (they currently attend 5000 farmers in Peru) and 1 Social Impact Fund in North America, processing the information gathered in our machine learning engine to provide the farm foodprint, reducing uncertainty for both actors. They also, register the information they gather in field visits, keep feeding our database. After one year working they have increased by 15% the number of farmers attended. Farmers now receive loans with up to 30% fewer interest rates and 94 farmers have received for the first time a formal loan with a financial institution.

• Challenge: Famly farmers food insecurity. 
• Inputs:
  • AGROS Advisor: remote advisory service to improve productivity and manage climate changes in farm management. 
  • AGROS Identity: digital trusted identity implemented using blockchain and recording information of farmer activities, financial history, productivity and farm management. 
• Outputs:
  • Increased Yield and productivity. 
  • Connection with riks transfer institutions.
  • Connection with formal financial institutions. 
  • Connection to competitive global markets.
• Outcomes:
  • Turn family farmers into professional and sustainable farming entrepreneurs. 

Our success metrics are: Land Monitored. Farmers Registered. Information Records provided by farmers. API Queries & Consults by Financial Insitutions. 

For the next year we will focus on these three main objectives: 

• Integrate 3 new crops in our knowledge database (coffee, potatoes, and cocoa). 
• Register 10 k farmers. 
• Improve 3k financial operations risk management.

Within the next five years we would build a digital ecosystem to offer opportunity to other startups or companies to build solutions on top of the AGROS ID structure to reach a total digital revolution in rural space. 

The internal risk we are facing is the technology adoption resistance of many farmers, and resistance to register information of their daily or season work.  

The external risk we are dealing with is the climatic and resource availability (water and inputs). 

Internal Risk: We are working with farming associations, identifying farmer leaders to motivate them to use technology to secure their production, and changing traditional mental and predisposition to technology.

External Risk: we are working alongside farming associations and microfinance institutions to develop an affordable smart agroinsurance. In this challenge, 1% of association incomes are used to have a save for climatic phenomena problems, using crop diversity inside associations to reduce vulnerability.

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Today we are 13 members in our family working full time to erase food insecurity in rural space.

Founder team has more than ten years of experience working with smallholder farmers and technical farming extension programs, gaining more in-depth knowledge of the family farming ecosystem. Also, we have  13 years working in precision agriculture and technology transfer programs, having the secret sauce of track the problem from the roots in a lean and smart way. Other organizations rely on a guarantee-required model to offer financial services and connections to the market. Unfortunately, less than 20% of smallholder farmers have trusted information to apply for land valuation or proof of their productivity. Other organizations use the crowdfunding model to get access to cash and offer lower interest rates for micro-lending services. However, the risk remains high due to the uncertainty of available information. Finally, another approach in this problem is based on buyers' money, giving loans to farmers securing next season production and access to the market, but farmers cannot negotiate fair prices for their output.

Today we are working with:

• CHOICE Humanitarian: an USA based NGO focus on improving rural communities live conditions. 
• PROMPERU: Peruvian Commercial Agency, and they help us to get access to competitive buyers in global market to connect them with farmers. 
• ENTEL Peru: Mobile Operator. They provide better connectivity options and plans to help farmers get connected with AGROS platform. 

We build a "Information as a Service" Business Model, working as an Agronomic Information Bureau, providing information about the agronomic footprint of the farmers and their farms. Each time a stakeholder request information a farmer "profile" we charge a fee, and as in many cases they need to "monitor" the changing conditions of the farm, we provide a "monitoring" service for stakeholders, to get updated information monthly. 

We are applying to Solve as we believe that the problem we are addressing cannot be solved but just one team, so we need the power of "Solvers" community to improve the digital transformation of the rural space. After COVID-19 started spreading in rural space in Latin America farmers, have changed their mindset, understanding that they have to adapt to new normality and are more open to trying solutions. We believe that building a trusty farmer's digital identity could help farmers to make a leapfrog of the challenges they have now. In Peru, government farming cash support fails because a database of farmers and their needs was not accurate, and just 30% of the farmers who really need this support receive it, and 5% of farmers sold their farms because they couldn't afford the lockdown. This shows us that we are facing a huge challenge, but SOLVE community, experts, and the network could connect us with more entrepreneurs, innovators, and stakeholders interested in change the agriculture paradox - "Farmers who feed the world, live in food insecurity."

• Technology: We are recently incluiding blockchain technology to generate a trusted Identity platform, that could be scalable to other countries, and get connected with specialist in this field could be very helpful. 
• Business Model: Different business case bring us to the question: "Why not create a better addressed XXXX service?". And this applies for insurance, loans, payment systems and others. So identify the best opportunity to improve impact and have a sustainable business model is the challenge. 
• Legal: In many countries, contract farmign doesn't have a legal framework, so civil legal framework is used, but unfortunately for farmers this doesn't provide many of the conditions a "contract farming" relationsiop should have. So found an approach to fill that gap, is part of our mission now. 
• Marketing and Media. Currently as we are a small team, PR and an media presence have not well adressed. 

• Technical advisors to help us to improve our capabilites in Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence, as we consider core skills to make our solution scalable. 
• Entrepreneurs who are focus on developing solutions in financial and insurance sector, of underserved population. 
• NGO's focus on rural communities. 
• Food global sector, to help us identify more needs they have in working with farmers. 

One of the main problem we identified is that 30% of farmers are illiterate, and 40% of the have reading problems, so SMS communication or using an APP is not the solution to address the problem we are looking for to solve. So we have developed a solution to turn voice call messages into text and understand farmers questions to connect them with the right advisor to improve their production, and in the same way we deliver back the recomendations generated in voice call mode (using text to voice engine). 

Nevertheless as we continue increasing our farmers database, more local accents were incluided making challenging to understand farmers needs, and at the same time they are doesn't feel so confortable to listen a "Espain accent voice" (currently available engines use this accent). So we belive that to build true inclusion in rural sector, technologies have to adapt to them, and "voice" is the better channel for them to communicate.