Managing a farm is not easy. Droughts, floods, pests, rising prices of raw materials, falling sales prices, low profitability and maturing agricultural loans are just some of the many challenges faced by agricultural and livestock farmers.
Renato Borges is the son of rural producers and has known the daily challenges of these sectors since he was a child. Aware of the problems, this young Brazilian computer engineer decided to create Agrointeli, an artificial intelligence platform that connects farmers with their crops to democratize agricultural technology and make agriculture more sustainable. For this breakthrough, Borges has been chosen by MIT Technology Review in Spanish as one of the winners of Innovators under 35 Latin America 2020.
The system centralizes, integrates, and organizes different data sources in one place, which helps farmers manage their farms. Algorithms take and organize data from aerial images, sensors, and machinery. They then give recommendations to farmers in a single place. "Agrointeli generates intelligence, automation and process optimization. In this way it saves money and time," explains Borges.
The decentralized nature of the information needed to manage agriculture means an increase in costs, environmental impact, and loss of time. In addition, "the farmer does not have the opportunity to use digital technologies in his farm and that is why Agrointeli is a leader in breaking this barrier," says its creator.
Finally, Borges points out that his connected products do not require farmers to depend on the Internet, since "70% of farms in Brazil do not have an Internet connection due to lack of investment," the young man laments.
His technology already monitors more than 300,000 hectares every day, but his goal is to turn Agrointeli into Latin America's largest digital platform for small and medium-sized farmers. In addition to expanding his business, Borges wants to increase productivity and reduce the environmental impact of agriculture in a context of climate and water crisis with a growing population that will demand more food. "We need to feed more people with less impact on natural resources," he concludes.
The president of the board of directors of HGBeyond Material Science (Spain) and member of the Innovators under 35 Latin America 2020 jury, Paloma Cabello, considers that Borges "has built an intelligent platform for crop management and optimization, which is well adapted to the specific uses and the values of small farmers in the agri-food segment."
