The power of open platforms
How the Cropwise Open Platform will help scale agricultural innovation
Why AI-driven farming tools aren’t reaching every farmer
Farmers everywhere can’t do their job without the right equipment. Planters, tractors, harvesters and more are all essential. But some of the most impactful tools are those carried around in a farmer's pocket.
Yet as these pocket-sized devices grow more powerful — equipped with AI-driven apps for precision agriculture, predictive analytics, and automated decision-making — a new divide is emerging.
New IPSOS research shows that while younger farmers and those with larger operations are keen to adopt new technology, smaller farms and older farmers are slower to adopt new technology. In short, there’s a growing awareness that the benefits of digital tools aren’t reaching all farmers.
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A customized approach for digital farming solutions
Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, empowering farmers, start-ups and other agricultural enterprises to create bespoke digital solutions could help drive implementation of these new technologies.
And it’s exactly that idea behind the launch of the Cropwise Open platform.
Sharing Syngenta’s expertise with the world
Andriy Andriychuk, Global Head of Digital AgTech Platforms says that: “Syngenta is one of the largest ag tech companies in the world – with thousands of digital specialists and millions of agronomic data points. Now, we’re sharing that knowledge with the external world allowing us to help accelerate innovation for everyone “
Think of it as customizable digital infrastructure, ready straight out of the box.
Feroz Sheikh, Syngenta’s Chief Information and Digital Officer, says: “The Cropwise Open Platform represents a significant step forward in bridging the inequity that exists within the take up of agricultural technology.
Enabling developers and large-scale operations
Andriychuk says: “With our own digital products we can’t focus on every need, but we can offer the tools to allow others to take on these untapped opportunities in a way that's right for them.”
Sheikh agrees: “By creating an open ecosystem that combines our deep agricultural expertise with cutting-edge digital capabilities, we're empowering developers to support farmers to build precisely the solutions they need.”
The Cropwise Open Platform allows developers to build scalable, completely customizable apps to manage the complexities of modern farming.
Andriychuk explains that there are two kinds of users in the first phase: “There are those who are building their own software with our infrastructure.
Secondly, there are large-scale operations that already use products like Cropwise Protector or Operations. We make data available via the APIs to integrate data with their own systems. Here we act as an enabler, ensuring data integrity between two systems. For example, if a farm uses Cropwise Protector they can seamlessly share that scouting data straight back to their own system.”
There’s already a range of possibilities on offer, covering everything from satellite imagery and crop health monitoring to APIs that allow integration with Syngenta’s data-driven insights and predictive models on yield.
In short, the Cropwise Open Platform represents a unique opportunity. Bringing new innovations to agriculture no longer needs expensive infrastructure, making it easier for new ideas to reach people.
Additionally, with 70 million hectares of land already connected to the Cropwise ecosystem, a solution built on the Cropwise Open Platform will easily integrate with Cropwise solutions, making sure customized and tailored digital tools can reach a global audience.
Andriychuk gives a compelling example: “If you develop weather tracking stations, through the Cropwise Open platform these could plug and play directly into the Cropwise eco-system, reaching farmers everywhere around the world.”
The launch of the Cropwise Open Platform represents an acceleration of this work to bring tailored technological solutions to agriculture worldwide.
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