Future of Agriculture FOA 179: Data Insights for Farms of All Sizes with Mariana Vasconcelos of AgroSmart
Mariana Vasconcelos is the Founder of Agrosmart, a platform that brings digital agriculture to countries with low internet infrastructures under tropical agronomic conditions. The MIT Technology Review selected her as one of the Most Brilliant Innovators Under 35 and a Global Ambassador for Thought of Food. Being a farmer’s daughter, Mariana was aware of the problems that plague small farmers, especially when it comes to decisions about crops. To solve this gap, she proposed the idea to use AI and IoT to acquire more productive, sustainable, and economic agriculture which is what Agrosmart represents.
Mariana joins me today to discuss how Agrosmart works and the problems it seeks to solve for farmers in developing countries. She shares where her drive to start her company came from and the challenges of finding capital and investors. She describes how the data they collect can impact farming practices, especially in countries where farmers rely on instinct to make crop decisions. Mariana also explains why Brazil holds a lot of potential in terms of agriculture and the rising startup economy.
“We wanted to shift intuition-based decisions to fact-based decisions.” - Mariana Vasconcelos
This Week on The Future of Agriculture Podcast:
- Where Mariana saw the problem that needed to be addressed in the ag industry.
- The changes their data can impact on the current farm systems.
- Why they shifted from irrigation to a digital ag platform.
- The farmers that can benefit the most from their platform.
- How farmers can adapt their practices to climate change.
- The countries they're currently working in and some of their future projects.
- The crops they focus on and how their platform is universal.
- Dealing with rural connectivity problems in Latin America.
- The ag startup ecosystem in Brazil and the kind of companies that are rising.
- The most challenging aspects of scaling a Brazilian startup.
Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Mariana Vasconcelos
This episode is sponsored by Indigo Ag
What if surviving a drought began with just a microbe? What could accessing 10,000 buyers do for your agriculture business? Indigo Ag helps farmers improve profitability, environmental sustainability, and consumer health by working with growers to reimagine every aspect of the agriculture industry - from soil to sale.
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