Cultivating stronger crop yields globally

Crop growers across the world are facing increasingly difficult conditions. With changes in climate making weather patterns harder to predict, traditional irrigation methods no longer deliver sufficient yield. At the same time, the agricultural business is heavily impacted by trends, making agility crucial for success.

SupPlant works to help farmers optimize irrigation to support stronger crop yields while saving water by optimizing their usage. Using specialized in-field hardware and a proprietary software algorithms, SupPlant gives farmers tailored recommendations to support the real-time needs of crops. Aiming to expand, SupPlant recognized that it could use the rich data it has gathered to create a sensor-less solution, making smart irrigation methods accessible for small to medium-sized farms. At the same time, the company aimed to expand into B2B2C operations, helping sellers of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides connect with these smaller customers. The company also adopted a B2G approach, helping governments understand their food security landscape, preforming as an insurance policy to better understand where to focus their efforts on a national level.

“Around 90% of the world’s farmers are running small-scale operations,” begins Lior Naaman, Chief Marketing Officer at SupPlant. “Often, they have little experience with technology and lack resources to install hardware. By redesigning our technology to meet their needs, we aimed to help significantly raise crop productivity across the world.”
 

SupPlant selected IBM® watsonx Orchestrate® and IBM DataStax® Astra DB as the basis for its new offering, called Plant ;). Building on the sophisticated algorithm and vast datastore SupPlant has developed, Plant ;) uses satellite images of plots to give farmers personalized weather and irrigation information twice a week, as well as ad hoc alerts for extreme weather and plant stress.

With IBM DataStax Astra DB, SupPlant automated the ingestion and retrieval of the unstructured data the company gathers from sensors and satellites, enriching it to make it AI-ready. Then, using watsonx Orchestrate, SupPlant developed AI agents that help farmers analyze their plots over time for deeper insights. At the same time, SupPlant developed an AI agent to identify leads for agricultural sellers.

Initially, SupPlant ran a proof-of-concept project with 50 farmers. With a strong feedback loop and an iterative process, the company refined Plant ;) to make it more user-friendly. For example, on the front end, the solution is integrated with WhatsApp, meaning that farmers get notifications through a familiar interface, and do not have to install any new software.

With IBM technology at the heart of Plant ;), SupPlant can drive growth while helping small farmers grow the food that the world relies on. Significantly, SupPlant offers Plant ;) for free. Farmers can choose to purchase seed, fertilizer, and pesticides through SupPlant, but the smart irrigation technology is accessible to everyone, no matter their resources.

“Using IBM’s technology, we can build trust with local farms and produce reliable leads for agricultural sellers, streamlining marketing and boosting their sales,” explains Naaman.

Today, around 50,000 farmers worldwide are using Plant ;), and SupPlant is seeing 500-1,000 new users joining every day. The company has recorded an 80% user satisfaction rate, with 80% of users reading every message sent by the solution and 30% engaging further by asking questions and answering polls. The high engagement rate means more farmers are getting deep insight into their plots, staying agile in the face of changing conditions, and keeping their crops healthier.

“We are constantly working on introducing new features to help farmers grow crops more efficiently than ever,” concludes Naaman. “As we scale up, we will continue to rely on IBM technology to achieve our targets.”

Founded in 2016, SupPlant is an agricultural technology company on a mission to save water while improving crop productivity and yield. With around 100 employees in offices across Israel, Morocco, Mexico and other countries, SupPlant works globally to analyze the real-time needs of crops, producing actionable agronomical insights for farmers.