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Of bees, drones and inspiring ideas
Humming little creatures with black and yellow stripes are not the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the buzzwords digitalisation and smart farming. But the digital revolution and evolution also begins in the beehive. At least that's how Eytan Schwartz, Vice President of pollination service provider BeeHero, sees it. His session on the Farming Forward stage was all about the welfare of bees.
“Colony mortality rates are alarmingly high – and Albert Einstein said, ‘If the bee disappeared from the surface of the earth, man would only have four years to live’. It's a huge crisis,” said Schwartz. The consequences are lower yields and poorer fruit quality, as well as falling prices – with corresponding effects on the economy and the food supply chain. This is because 75 per cent of food crops depend on bees for pollination.
Data used strategically and intelligently
BeeHero manages more than 300,000 beehives worldwide, collecting 25 million pieces of data every day. “Our IoT sensors on the honeycombs translate the buzzing of the bees into information, like Google Translate, and we can then see what is going on in the hives,” explains Schwartz. BeeHero's Pollination Insight Platform (PIP) data platform also makes it possible to monitor bee activity directly in the field and see where and what the bees are really pollinating.
Kimberly Rose, Compu-Tech
Data was also the focus of Kimberly Rose, COO at Compu-Tech. From field to table, her tool collects information along the supply chain with the overarching goal of reducing food waste and increasing operational efficiency. “For example, we determine the size and colour of the fruit, but also the chemicals in storage, to find out which fruit should be sold faster,” explains Rose. The data is collected using drones over the growing areas, sensors, and also by the farmers on site. The analyses of data models provide information on optimal packaging, storage and sales.
From AI assistant to AI agent
The Fields app from the Spanish start-up South Dessert Studio is a kind of Amazon marketplace for agriculture that connects producers and retailers. As a direct and secure link between farmers, wholesalers and end-market stores, without any intermediary chains. ‘It's basically the same as in the Middle Ages, when farmers sold their goods directly from storage, so quickly, efficiently and freshly,’ said Germán Roche, founder and CEO of South Dessert Studio. However, with significantly more technical refinements.
“Your next employee will be an AI-controlled co-pilot for the greenhouse,” promised Rien Kamman, co-founder and CEO of Source, in his session. He presented the further development of the AI assistant into an AI agent. “Each farmer has to make around 15,000 decisions per season. AI support can help to relieve this burden and also to prevent expensive wrong decisions,” said Kamman.
The AI agent, fed with a large amount of data, can, for example, take over irrigation, act autonomously and react to changes in solar radiation. It also learns continuously and creates analyses. This also increases efficiency. All of the digital innovations presented have one goal in common: to meet the immensely growing demand for fresh fruit worldwide and to avoid waste.