Cropfix by eAgro

 Cropfix by eAgro  is a whats-app and text based chat-bot  that assists in identifying plant damage from pests, diseases and nutrient deficiency with the help of machine learning. 

Cropfix is a whats-app and text based chat-bot  that assists in identifying plant damage from pests, diseases nutrient deficiency with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Images taken by farmer in field are sent and automatically analyzed by our algorithm which identify crop diseases, pest or nutrient deficiency within seconds. Then critical information on symptoms, triggers, agro-chemicals as well as natural/biological treatments are provided for the farmer to immediately prevent further spread. Pictures sent are geo-time-tagged thereby allowing real-time monitoring of pest and disease patterns which allows to warn nearby farmers and give them preventative measures to curb any spread. Through use of Artificial intelligence it will improve crop yield by helping fight crop losses and unnecessarily or wrong use of pesticides. 

The severe lack of on-time pest/disease agricultural advisory when their needed the most when there is a rapid spreading crop epidemic, farmers loose their yields due to late diagnosis or misdiagnosis of crop problems,  where they use wrong pesticide or they diagnose it too late where they end end harvesting less due to pest damage crop failure .

 In Zimbabwe and Southern Africa one extension officer has to service over 2000 farmers in a season, which is appalling. 

Currently farmer has to call extension officer in their ward,  wait multiple days  for farm visit  and then they give diagnosis then farmer goes to local shop to purchase pesticides recommended, which takes multiple days process and also costs a lot. Taking this time allows the pests/disease to spread and further damage crop which contributes in the low to average yield .  This has been worsened by Covid pandemic which is limiting human movement  across the farms leaving most smallholder farmers exposed. 

In some instances farmers cant access extension officer and just ask colleagues or local shop keepers, describing their problem by mouth,which leads to misdiagnosis and further damage of crop and reduce our harvest. This is mainly common in smallholder farmer who don’t have access to extension officers.

Pests, diseases, weeds and nutrient deficiency problems pose an even significant risk to farmers yield size and quality  when they are not monitored and managed correctly. Smallholder farmers loose up to 40% of yield due to pests and crop diseases late or misdiagnosis. 

There are over  7.1 million smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe, and with about 55% have access to either whats-app or smartphone then at least 65% have access to a feature phone. This translates to at least target of 3.9 Million farmers as initial and ideal target market. 

Our target market are smallholder farmers with limited access to agronomist and extension officers or data to search internet or use online mobile agronomy applications and have them facing harshest effects or pests, disease and nutrient deficiency problems. But the same farmers who have access to whats-app or text service to use our product. 

According to Potraz 55% of people in Zimbabwe have access to what-app and increasing year on year basis on a 1.5 multiple.    

These farmers are currently undeserved as they are relying on too few agronomy extension officers to service and cater for their agronomy services and at a premium price which most rural youth  and women farmers cannot afford or have to access to them. Even those who have access to them have to wait for a week or so whilst disease are spreading to get help in their crop. hence they are underserved in this market and fairly ignored. 

Our solution is helping these farmers through digitizing extension services, which means these farmers do not have to wait several days before diagnosing their problem they get instant help whilst they are in their farm which ensures  early curbing of diseases and any problem 

We carried out mobile and WhatsApp surveys to ask farmers if they would want such service and had over 75%  of farmers have accessing to WhatsApp and text and over 80% willing to use such a product. 

We also then carried out a test pilot in partnership with POTRAZ ( Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority in Zimbabwe) which we worked with over 500 Farmers and had a 62% conversion rate of one time users of the solution and also 46% retuning user over period of 4 months. 

from that we have been able to iterate, evolve and tweak key aspects that farmers based on user behavior's and consultations from farmers to come up with the version we have that's in the market right now. 

Our solution uses Artificial Intelligence and machine learning. 

It uses AI in automatic identification of pests and diseases of through neural networks that aid in computation and detection of the disease from our dataset to match the image sent. We are redefining  how neural networks can help smallholder farmers in Africa. 

It also uses machine learning in the images that are sent by he users are also kept and used to automatically train  increase accuracy and our dataset where the machine learns from those images on new disease classification and detection. 

Our Solution also incorporates GIS through NASA free satellite access that allows us to map disease movement and crop stress on large farms through satellite monitoring and disease mapping for crop stress over large areas of land. 

We have managed to collect in field data of over 150 000 images of 20 crops and 80 diseases, pests or nutrient deficiency problems affecting crops grown locally such as maize, cotton, tobacco, wheat, tomatoes etc with a 92% accuracy.

We have managed to pilot test the product with  over 1100 farmers farmers in Norton and got feedback to enhance usability, and started traction, we have a minimum viable product with user traction and user feedback and iterations. We are now going for market validation and scaling product in 2022. 

We plan to increase to other cities and communities through agriculture extension officers in 2022 to be able to reach our target number of 4000 Farmers by year end. 

We have a vision to have help these farmers to increase yields by spotting pests and diseases early, and reduce damage to be able to reduce the high 40% crop damage caused by pests and disease. 

-Reduce crop damage from 40% to below 15% for farmers using product through sustainable agriculture practice. 

- Increase yield by 30% of farmers using our product 

- Reduce farmers cost on pesticide, chemicals through precision application 

- Increase farmers livelihood through increased income from better harvest,. lower cost in production to enhance farmers livelihood

- We measure impact through number of people that use the platform throughout the season that allows us to track crop growth metrics and from that will be able to predict harvest size, crop damage and know how much the farmer saved and how much their harvest have increased through data analytics of the images they send throughout the season an user behavior's. 

- the main barriers is cultural barrier of how farmers are customed to receive help from physical extension officers and not a an app on the phone.  

- We might also have barrier of covid lockdowns and limitations that might slow down framer onboarding training and product awareness campaign's we plan to be doing  

Our team comprises of Data Analyst, Agronomist, Application developer and business management experts with relevant Degrees in those fields which makes our team specifically positioned to take our startup from national scale to even be service used in greater southern Africa in the near future. As it has proven in undertaking the pilot that it is capable. 

Team members such as Tafadzwa grew up in Farmside areas of Hatcliff and Domboshava and has gone on to pursue agronomy which is really helping us as she has advanced knowledge of target market and deep understanding of how best to help#, enter and add value to the smallholder farmers we are working with. 

The majority of our team has lived at least a certain time on different farms and worked with farmers prior, this has led to us having key connections market experience and allowed to rapidly build, test and iterate and deploy our solution in these markets we grew up in. 

We also have a strong advisory team of Dr E Chikwereti and Mr V Chaonza who have combined experience of over 30 Years in private sector and agri-business value chain, who are giving us mentorship, guidance and support on our venture. 

We have partnered with Potraz ( Postal and Telecommunication regulatory board of Zimbabwe) to pilot the program in select communities and resource pooling through servers and capital. 

UNDP( United nations Development Program) Zimbabwe working in select communities with their farmers . 

Anzisha Prize for Very Young Entrepreneurs  (Mastercard Foundation) business development and capital support. 

We help smallholder farmers get more resilient and financially stable through sustainable agriculture. Women and youth farmers make up over 70 % of the customers as they are the most unincluded and disadvantaged farmers. 

where 74% of rural farmers are women but the same women own only 13% of the land hence we are using our platform to help these farmers to become more financially resilient an sustainable in their farming ventures.