Food produced with Agriculture 4.0

Agriculture products from our sustainable crops leveraged by our Agro-box and smart contracts between farmers, distributors and consumers

Experimental phyisicst, Software Engineer, Bioengineer, Economist, startup with 2 years of experience developing agricultural technologies.

Problem statement and context:

1.1. Latin America is one of the biggest food producers and exporters, but it also has alarming statistics about hunger. In recent times it has become mandatory to argue about food sovereignty, which strongly focuses not just on people having access to food, but being aware about food production processes and cultural interests on food. Also, it questions some aspects about the industrial and massive agro systems and claims about local production as a way to assert freedom and non dependency.

1.2. A considerable part of agriculture in Latin America is based on farmer's traditional knowledge and a lifetime experience. Although it has been useful for many decades, recent times agriculture faces the impacts of an accelerated climate change. This is a scenario in which farmers lose their production more often and have no answers for solving it. This is a challenge for traditional small and medium agriculture in order to become more efficient, profitable, sustainable and resilient to external crises which consistently affect Latin America and the rest of the globe. In this scenario high quality and affordable digital technology is needed with urgency in order to develop precise and real-time knowledge about soil features and environmental conditions, which can be combined with the expertise of traditional knowledge about the territory.

1.3. Soil features, environmental conditions, crop performance and traceability of food products are key points to increase the yield of agricultural systems, but obtaining data in real-time about crop requirements through technology is still a challenge because of the internet access barrier in rural areas in Latin America. Moreover, sensor devices are not affordable and user-friendly for small and medium farmers. Also, current sensor devices are not embedded on one same device so it challenges data collection, analysis and technology development.

1.4. The new generations of end-customers globally are concerned about the origin, quality, safety and sustainability of food products. The ecology farming and righteous trade between farmers, distributors and consumers have become overriding aspects for purchase customers decisions.

1.5. For the Colombian case, the small and medium farmers face unfair payments for their productions compared to distributors because of the lack of market prices standards and regulation. Also, the difficult conditions of the infrastructure (roads) which connect rural areas to cities and towns doesn't allow the producer to take their products to the final customer, so product/food waste becomes a usual scenario.

Solution details:

The agricultural food production chain can be optimized by integrating technology with sustainable production systems in a blockchain ecosystem. So, through Wseeds and Cardano, we offer a scalable agrotech ecosystem that allows the customer to make an investment for the development of a technified crop tailored to obtain the agricultural product or a percentage of the sales capital of the product. ¿How it works?...

[see image Agrotech wseeds ecosystem interactions diagram, 2021]

 So, wseeds solution offer:

A. Our own organic products from our sustainable crops leveraged by our technology.

B. Smart contracts between wseeds, customers, farmers and distributors through Cardano.

C. Multisensor IoT device (AgroBox) integrated with our own application to monitor and store data about the environmental crop conditions and make alerts in real time according to crop conditions variations. With the data stored in the Blockchain and AI models we will be able to anticipate environmental conditions on crops and take actions to improve efficiency and profitability of the agrosystem.

D. Data and monitoring to insurance companies to guarantee and reduce risks related to crops.

E. Real-time interaction between consumers and crops offering the chance to choose their agriculture products

It is not a secret that Data is one of the key components of the 4th industrial revolution we are currently witnessing. In this context, the huge advantages of our idea are:

A. We make it data-centered from the beginning. We created a low-cost multi-sensor device to standardize data measurements and collection from day-one which will make our future decisions centered on evidence extracted from our data. The more our idea grows, the more data we collect and the more value we can exploit.

B. In an initial stage, our data will serve to monitor crop environmental variables and connect the user to their investment in a more meaningful way. This will incentivize investment and engagement with our app.

C. In the medium term, we will use the data collected from our sensors to automate the control of environmental variables with irrigation systems for humidity, fans & extractors for temperature and artificial lights for luminosity.

D. In the long term, we will use our data to leverage productivity with a variety of AI-powered models ranging from yield optimization with the control of environmental variables, yield prediction at early stages of the crop, early disease identification in plants, to name a few. 

Our value idea has 2 fundamental inputs and outputs. The inputs that we need to start the process at the Blockchain ecosystem are client's investment capital and client's interest product information. So, when we have these requirements we can make all the smart contracts, investments and processes for the crop production. Finally, we obtain an ecological food product that can be delivered to local clients or sold to markets and distributors to obtain return percentage capital for the client.

[see image Business Process flowchart from Wseeds Agrotech Ecosystem, 2021]

¿How do we want to execute our project? (Roadmap)

For our execution plan we set some Objectives and Key Results (OKR) thinking in our development phases:

1. Design and produce AgroBox Basic, AgroBox Terra, AgroBox Aqua

     a. Design, implement and test the sensors and electronic components of the Agroboxes. (3 months)

     b. Design and produce the Agrobox shell to protect the internal components. (6 months)

     c. Program and calibrate more than 15 different IoT sensors. (9 months)

     d. Standardize and implement Agrobox manufacture processes. (12 Months)

2. Develop Wseeds Platform IoT data control and Management, Blockchain integrity, Business data management

     a. Design, develop and debug wseeds user front end with mockups and functionalities ideas (3 months)

     b. Design, develop and debug Wseeds user back end. (6 months)

     c. Integrate and test blockchain applications. (12 Months)

3. Develop AgroLab

     a. Construct AgroLab infrastructure. (3 months)

     b. Implement experimental hydroponic and raised-bed crops. (6 months)

     c. Automate and test AgroLab components.

4. Implement Business model y marketing strategy

     a. Design & construct a solid business model. (3 months)

     b. Create video-publicity for the project. (6 months)

     b. Engage with users in social apps. (12 Months)

In the same way, we write the indicators metrics for every OKR:

Key Performance Metrics (KPIs)

1. Number of AgroBoxes (Expected 3 types)

     a. Do electronic components work? (Expected yes)

     b. Does the shell protect the electronic components? (Expected yes)

     c. Number of sensors programmed and calibrated. (Expected 15)

     d. Number non-manually manufactured AgroBoxes (Expected 8)

2. Do we have a working Wseeds platform? (Expected Yes)

     a. Can the user connect to the Wseeds platform (Expected Yes)

     b. Number of bugs in the backend. (Expected 0)

     c. Number of blockchain applications integrated into the app. (Expected 3)

3. Do we have a working AgroLab? (Expected yes)

     a. Is the AgroLab infrastructure working properly. (Expected yes)

     b. How many crops of each type were implemented. (Expected 20, 20)

     c. How many components were automated. (Expected 5)

4. How many people did we reach with our marketing campaign (Expected 1000)

    a. How many videos did we create. (Expected 3)

    b. How many people did we reach. (Expected 1000)

¿What do we expect from the project?

Agrobox

We hope to improve and develop new agroboxes according to the needs of our agricultural production systems. We expect to develop AgroBox Basic, AgroBox Terra and AgroBox Aqua.

Wseeds Platform

For the interaction that we want to create between the clients and wseeds we want to improve the platform to have different sections in the wseeds app according to the role that you have in the process. So, we expect to have a customers section and a company section in the same app.

AgroLab

We hope to have an 10m2 automated greenhouse for sustainable agricultural production that has an integrated agrobox system for obtaining, recording and analyzing environmental and crop information through the wseeds platform. [See greenhouse images 1 - 6]

Market

Our principal market will be people (customers) who care about sustainable agriculture at their food-bought times.Also, we want to make business partners with some small and medium farmers in order to look for ways to improve the agricultural production systems of the region. So, we expect to establish business relationships with at least 1000 clients and 10 small and/or medium farmers.

Budget Plan:

Agricultural inputs:5000

Labor/workforce(5): 4500

Land Leasing: 2000

AgroBoxes: 15000

Transport and delivery: 2000

Devops payroll (2): 9500

Backend Payroll (1): 6000

FrontEnd Payroll (1): 6000

Plutus Smart Contract developer Payroll (1): 15000

Administrative Payroll: 2000

Machinery and Equipment: 4000

Taxation & Business lawyer: 8000

Marketing: 6000

Our Team:

Wseeds: wseeds is a colombian start-up engaged in the agro-tech industry dedicated to design and implement devices to measure environmental conditions. wseeds is focused to implement AI models using Iot data with agro industry patterns in order to maximize productivity and reduce the carbon footprint by predicting and managing better the crop supplies. Currently working with multiple agro producers in order to improve efficiency and profitability.

https://wseeds.co/

Juan Vargas: Software Engineer and physicist with 4 years of experience building cloud based solutions. Led the development of 3 end-user ready platforms and with a curious nature and passionate about mastering new technologies. Cardano stake pool operator. https://www.linkedin.com/in/juannnesss

Ciro Gelvez: Physicist with 4 years of experience in research and applied physics in micro and nano electronics. Co founder of startup focused in solutions to the agricultural industry. Current student of a master in Blockchain applied to enterprises. Plutus - Haskell course for smart contracts in EBU. Cardano stake pool owner. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cirogelvezp

Gabriela Barrero: Bioengineer over 4 years of experience in agricultural pest management, especially biological pest control and quality control of biotechnology-based agricultural products. Experience in the development of polycultures, hydroponic systems, aquaponics and agroecology. https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriela-barrero-echeverr%C3%ADa-27890951

Camilo Ávila: Economist with a minor in Business Administration with over 6 years of experience in consulting and investment banking. He has worked at Pricewaterhousecoopers, Los Andes University and Provicapital Partners. https://www.linkedin.com/in/camilo-avila-montes-59b812110

Jesús Prada: Sr. Data Scientist, MSc. in Physics with over 5 years of experience developing Machine Learning and AI models in the academy and the applied industries (Bancassurance, Logistic companies & Tech startups). Experienced in multipurpose predictive models applied in the areas of Credit risk, Insurance claims and Customer LTV and Churn, NLP AI models for video tagging and Deep Learning models applied to videogames. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesus-prada-452497179

Valentina Sandoval: Anthropologist with complementary studies in Design. Experience in research and field work. Interests oriented towards practical proposals over environment, sustainability and food security. Current User Experience Researcher at a colombian software company. Cardano user and enthusiast. https://www.linkedin.com/in/vasando97

Very soon more information available at:

https://agrotcardano.com/