AGRIVI puts AI to work on farms worldwide
Episode Details
Transcript
On this episode of Pivotal, we meet Matija Zulj, the founder and CEO of the Croatian software company AGRIVI. Mitija explains how his company’s new AI solution — AGRIVI Ed — is making a large trove of industry and environmental data available and accessible to farmers to help them make better, faster decisions that can significantly improve their crop yields and income.
AGRIVI believes that the positive effects of agriculture’s digital transformation will extend beyond making farming more efficient and profitable — it also has the potential to entice a younger generation to join the industry, reduce food waste, and help solve the global problem of food insecurity.
Empowering farmers with AI tools is the new frontier of digital agriculture, and it ensures our access to food for generations to come.
Link to full episode transcript.
Produced by Larj Media.
Hayete
Welcome to Pivotal. Hayete Gallot, corporate vice president for commercial solution areas at Microsoft. I work with customers around the globe to transform their business through technology. At the center of every transformation are people who give technology its purpose. And that doesn't change with the advent of AI. It's actually being accelerated. People visionary ideas for leveraging technology. The release of AI technology like Chad GPT this year is exciting, but it has led to big question as we grapple with the best way to harness those tools to enhance and support the people behind the work. We like to talk about technology. Hayete
I love to talk about it. Hayete
But we often forget that technology is most effective it supports people with purpose. This season will demystify AI by talking to the innovators using new AI technology to uplift their industries and augment their people from educate to journalism, to surfing, and it just illustrates what AI is about. Everybody thinks it's about tech. No. Everybody's using AI, and that's what we're gonna show you on this season. Hayete
Today, we're speaking with the CEO and founder of Agrivi. A company developing digital agricultural tools designed to help farmers across the world optimize their practices and improve their productivity, profitability, and sustainability. After helping farmers for over ten years, Agrivi has been able take their offerings even further with Agrivi Ed, an AI adviser chatbot application that provides twenty four seven assistance to farmers. This is a perfect example of a company that has been working on a human centered solution, and he's poised to scale quickly now. That there are AI tools available to help them reach new customers. By expanding their reach to smaller and medium sized farms globally, they're optimistic that the positive downstream effect will extend as far as reducing food waste and food insecurity. As you'll see, their AI tool, Agreevy Ed is new. Just launched in the summer of twenty twenty three. But already, thousands of farms around the world are using the platform. This is a great example of how organization, while leveraging AI to them they're rich and rapidly scale their businesses. We'll see how they've grown, where their ag tech offerings look like before revolutionary gen AI. What they're aiming to achieve with AI. Matija
My name is Matija Zulj. I'm a founder and CEO at Agreevy. Hayete
Earlier in his career, Matija studied computer science, software engineering, and business intelligence. Then he moved to mobile when smartphones were in their infancy. Matija
We created the mobile advertising networks, scale it. And, that was actually the moment when when I got my moment. And, discover that, although I was very inspired in building companies, building new businesses, scaling the business. So that that's, inspired me a lot. I was lacking something, something that, is more connected with impact. Hayete
This discovery came up all of a sudden one morning. Matija
I was browsing on my on my smartphone. So reading the news, and I got the full screen banner popping out. And, my first reaction was I was, simply looking for x to close the edge. So I realized that although I was building a incredible technology and, helping everybody to to actually communicate with their customers. I was annoying a lot of people, a day that were just looking for x to close the app. That was my moment when I said, well, Matyar, you can probably do something where you don't annoy people where you really inspire people and help people. Hayete
It's interesting to see Matias moment. I had a similar moment when I build a growth team where we're all about experimenting and trying to get people to use more. And we realized there is a fine balance between pushing and getting people to enjoy the experience. It suddenly clicked for Matia that he really wanted to spend his time working on sustainable agriculture. Matija
At that time, I took SDGs. I don't know, really sustainable development goals, and, tried to analyze, okay, So if I where I want to focus my most productive years, and, I realized that, among all of the global challenges that really big, I was somehow connected the most, and the food and agriculture problem resonated the most with me personally. And, I didn't have, any direct connection with agriculture, till that point. My grandparents had, but, my parents' details, so we lived in a city. I grew up in a city. And, at that point time, I really wanted to learn how it is to grow your food. So I started my own blueberry farm from scratch completely. This was the moment when I discovered what it means to grow and produce food, and it's really hard. So dad's job is really hard job. And, I'll learn to appreciate every time when I eat, where it comes from, who has put effort into it, and so on. Hayete
Matilla's understanding of just how hard it is to grow food. Met delivering fresh blueberries after a harvest. An extremely fulfilling activity. Matija
When you really do the harvest, when you pick berries and when when you deliver it, and I try to also do the delivery to some people really to get the feeling what it means. And when you see the smile, when you when you deliver to the hands of the people, really organic fresh blueberries. And, when you start to have the re continuous, basically, the conversational requirements when order again and again when their kids love it because it's completely healthy. They they don't have any kind of, any kind of, allergies to that, because it's really organic. So then you then you see that happiness, how how what it means to people. And, that was that was truly inspiring moment for me. Hayete
And, of course, farming also had its challenges. Matija
The hardest part, is really, handling the risks altogether because one year you have, like, heavy rain every single week, And, you can't even perform activities on fire. Everything is wet, all all the time, and you don't need to irrigate. So one season is like that. Next season, it doesn't rain for four months. You need to irrigate every single day. So better extremes. That's, that's something that that really you can't count how you will do the season. You need to be continuously reactive on a daily basis And, that's the hard hardest part today. Hayete
With his background in tech, Matiya, naturally wanted to invest in digital systems, to optimize is farming. Matija
I wanted to make my farm really completely equipped, so completely digitalized And I invested into a lot of technology, a lot of systems. I discovered that, a center platform, like ERP, where you can actually manage all your all your farm processes, that didn't exist. So ten years ago, that wasn't available on the market. And, I saw the opportunity in that, and this is, how Agreevia as a company started initially as a power management company. That was the founding moment. Hayete
As someone who works in technology, it's hard to believe there wasn't a centralized software solutions for farmers on the market, even ten years ago. They focused initially on a farm management platform, a centralized platform form for managing all daily operations on the farm. It helps farmers make data driven decision to increase their productivity and profitability and mitigate risk. Matija
We started initially as as a true software as a service platform going directly to farms. And when you start a company from a small market, like Croatia. So, I see in Saudi, I believe in Croatia. Croatia is a country of four million people. It's a small market. So you need to start internationally immediately. So and that was, what we learned, over the years that that that was a blessing for us. Because, we had, that that struggle of small market made us, to use the opportunity to build a platform for international market. And this is what is, one of our strengths today globally with the platform. So we started initially directly with, with small and medium sized parts. So and then eventually grew up, to be able to serve the needs also the most demanding farms globally enterprise farms as well. That, were the most ready to accept digital solutions. So digitalization in agriculture is still early stage market globally. Because, it may seem deep, odd to a lot of people that are in different industries where, there is a decade of agriculture so far this year is everybody marks a decade who started the initially. And, everybody say, well, in a decade, everybody would use digital solutions, but everybody, misses out the point that, there there has been only ten harvests for farmers. So they have one opportunity. So one one chance to do the to do those success a year, one decision making Hayete
So if the farmer doesn't decide to go digital at the beginning of the season, they actually have to wait for the next year for them to start. It makes sense. Why take adoption is sore in that industry, but age is also a big factor. Matija
So age structure is, only all side, in a lot of countries, it's closer to sixty in average. Other people, don't tend to use the digital solutions that much. So they they farm the way they've farmed for years before. Hayete
Farming is physically demanding and riskier So younger generations are choosing work. They believe to be easier and more reliable. Not only is the average age for an EU farmer close to sixty, as Mattea said, only eleven percent of farm managers were under forty. Being a leader in agri tech in twenty twenty four means acknowledging the realities of these age barriers and working to reduce risk and provide more safety while helping farmers increase profitability and farm in a more sustainable way. Technology can also provide an incentive for new generation to this profession. Agriculture ultimately must modernize an incorporate cutting edge technology to attract younger generations towards this work because older generations are less likely to adopt new technology. That natural hesitation is an obstacle. Agreevey would need to face its own. As Agrivi scaled, they knew they had to be strategic about their product rollout. Matija
We saw that the biggest opportunity for us, as a company to grow, scale, and to be sustainable in the end is, to focus on those that are ready to adopt technologies now. So those those are bigger, bigger farms initially. And then over the years, we started actually to work with those farms, or with food companies that, work directly with farms to source crops that they produce. So those food companies would then bring our technology to growers, to help them produce better, to produce the quality levels they need. To secure traceability, food safety standards as well. And this is, the this is how we grew over the years. Hayete
Maty and his team. Reached a point a couple of years ago where they realized that although they had customers in over fifty markets globally, The majority were large farming enterprises. Matija
When you take a look at, the structure of agriculture globally, So two percent of, producers are big farms and they produce forty percent of global food production. And ninety eight percent are duress, small and medium sized, and they produce sixty percent of global food production. Hayete
So they were still missing a huge part of the market. By lacking the small and medium sized farms. So the question was, how do they reach this underserved somewhat reluctant customer base. This is where AgriV started paying close attention to what technologies the farmers or using on a regular basis. Matija
We wanted to see, okay, what we need to do, so not just us as a company, but everybody in the industry to really cover the needs, and, current skill to, to be able to fit to the skill level of people that represent the majority of small and medium sized parts. So how to address that market? Because that market is still underserved completely. So, no, we were looking at that, and we saw no matter how good user interface, user experience we create, on a standard dev application, mobile application, it's often still too intense, for really small and mediums of size parts. And what we saw, what they're doing, our research showed that all of them are actually on, messaging apps like WhatsApp Viber, the different kind of, messaging apps. They're sending videos, looking at videos of their grandchildren. So then there is a strong motivation when they want something. So and they got used to those channels. So we we saw the huge opportunity to create something, so to to see how to deliver insights technology advice, directly through those platforms. And this is how the story of Agreevy Ed is a agronomic adviser basically started. Hayete
So AgriVIA is basically a chatbot. It's an AI agronomic advisor delivered to farms within WhatsApp. It's a familiar interface for most farmers because they already use it to communicate with their families. Through Agreevy Ed, they can receive proactive alerts and personalized recommendation, as well as on demand answers to any question they ask to chatbots. It is pretty smart for Agreevey to think about what tools the farmers are using and betting on that technology. So they they don't have to force a change for farmers. I agree we build their AI advisor to be familiar and simple, a strategy to help overcome the hesitation and anxiety of all the farmers. It's also a smart business decision to get new market share for small and medium sized businesses. So what kind of insights is Agreevey providing the farmers? Matija
We focus always on the process that happens throughout the season initially when a season starts on farm, so farms lead to plan of what they will do so they need support in planning. What kind of crops they want to, want to produce this season, what will be the split on their surface, what will be the most profitable, so support in, basically, choosing that cross split. So that's, that's initial support. And then when it starts, so it's decision making, when is the best timing, to solve to plant, basically. So what's the best timing? What is the best seed? What to choose? And then what kind of soil management to do? Whether they will deal deeply what was the conventional practice or they will apply some kind of regenerate to practice with local methods, at the moment, on the soil to really keep the carbon in the soil, to enrich the soil, or when it comes to fertilizing then, so plant nutrition or crop protection, there is a question, okay, do I need to protect my crops? So I found some mold on my apples. What to do? Now. And, just just to give you, how important these kind of decisions are. If you're late for one day with crop protection, It's usually one percent less yield, which means one percent less revenue for the farm. Hayete
The stakes are very high here. The decisions have to be timely, and the recommendation have to be very accurate. The wrong advice could ruin a year's worth of crops. Before this, you were just going on instinct, and climate change made this even more unpredictable for farmers. Agrivia has prioritized data accuracy using their own carefully crafted knowledge sets and algorithms. Matija
We try to provide insights, on every single step of the firing process. So you have a risk on this field of that pest or disease, you should spray. Or different kind of insights. And when farmers receive those insights, then they do the planning of the works, right to do it, how to do it, who will do it, and then they keep their records for traceability purposes and, to understand, actually, what was the cost of pro production. So they could know what is the farm profitability in the end. Hayete
So where is oldest data coming from? Matija
It comes from satellites. From, weather stations, from source sensors, from tractors. So different kind of, different kind of equipment on farm. Including people themselves when they and when they execute activities, as well. We do as a Microsoft Azure for is our cloud, cloud platform where we where we store all the data around, four farms globally including, including all the insights, and, we we use algorithms available as well on Kiser, including our own algorithms, to drive the decision making processes for farms. Hayete
All this proprietary agricultural knowledge is then connected with the conversational abilities of a GPT model from Azure OpenAI services. This is how they quickly built an easy to use farming chatbot. This is the new frontier of digital agriculture. Matija
Digital agriculture means, that farmers are practicing their farm production with the support of digital tools, basically. So it doesn't mean that crops are really close. So we are not playing a game in virtual space, somewhere, but we are really supporting farmers, to make a really timely decision. This decisions, better decisions, and, with the support of digital tools. So that is, that is primarily, digital, farming, digital agriculture. Altogether. Hayete
AgriV started initial work on the AI advisor tool in twenty twenty one. At first, Dogola for Agrivi Ed was narrow. They focused only on crop protection compliance. This involved using AI models to monitor pest risk, recommend compliant crop protection products and to tell farmers when the products have run their course, and it becomes safe to harvest the crops. But when they saw the first prototypes, they realized there's easy to use experience and the value the advisor was delivering. Meant they could expand the capabilities. Agrivi ed now covers much more of the farming process. Including seed selection, fertilizer insights, farming, and regenerative practices, and even crop insurance. Matija
From the day one of the company, we focused really on, leasing our our customers, what they like with the product, including our core core platform, historically. So for our management platform, and today for ad economic adviser, we truly listen to customers and try to try to continuously shape our innovation road map based on what, what is the most valuable for our customers. So continuously, when we are rethinking the road map, we're taking into account every single feedback to our customers give us. We do the interviews with customers as well, to really get understanding of, what So, for every single thing that, when we roll it out, that, it really provides a value they need. So continuously we were doing that. And, when we take a look at, the barriers, so At the moment in agriculture, you and in agriculture technology, you have a lot of different systems. So in the in the last decade, a lot of went into this space as well, like, in other sectors. And, a lot of, startups, new companies have appeared, built products, but, there is still lack of standards. Hayete
We talk a lot about the importance of being customer obsessed. Centering the user throughout product development is crucial as the best tools are those that keep humans and their needs top of mind. This AI chatbot isn't replacing the farmer. It's just helping them make better, faster decision with more data points. It helps them become more profitable so they can stay in business. It's a tool to help make farming more stable and efficient. Matija
If you're a far, and if you want to digitalize completely or far, you still use multiple solution sound types. Because, it's not that there is standard where you can easily integrate and exchange data between ecosystems. And that is, one of the biggest critique, of parts, when adopting, technologies that, they need to use multiple systems. So being a farm management platform, we really try to integrate, all the key systems into one place. So we bring in settler data, better data, store data. So from multiple platforms, on one place, so that farms can make holistic decision not to go into different depths to be able to make a holistic decision. Hayete
I talked to many customers. And from a user perspective, one of the most exciting things about AI is the ability to exponentially improve access to useful information and insights. When technology takes the form of a conversation in natural human language, it makes adoption easier. People don't get as intimidated when they're invited to join a conversation. For small and mid sized farmers, especially Agriviate is a game changer. A simple agronomic WhatsApp AI Advisors available twenty four seven, and in their preferred language. This makes Agreevy's offering much more accessible and easier to adopt. By structuring the app in a more proactive way, Agreviate has been able to overcome some of the initial resistance from farmers. They already have a couple of thousand farms actively using AgriVET. Matija
The key part is, if you want to motivate farms really to accept and use the technology. So it's not that, to wait on their response when they think, okay. I think the time have a need, so really to use every single insight that we have to inform them. Well, you have a risk Do, do want to spray? Well, yes. Okay. What kind of products should I use? Well, these are the products that are compliant in your country. So you can use these products. And so, okay, what is the application rate? How much I need to apply it? Well, this is the instruction. So you get the full advice that is tailor made to a specific problem, but the problem and the the entire conversation is, triggered, from the system, from the platform to to really support farmers to to make the decision. Hayete
Farming is about understanding all the factors in the ecosystem and reacting accordingly. If the data and apps are disjointed, it becomes hard for farmers to navigate and receive a comprehensive assessment. Tumet data across too many apps can be a problem. AgriVie's core value comes from bringing everything together. And making it interactive through natural language. Matija
This helps us really to communicate, with farmers in, almost any language, available in really native language. And also, it is very good in economic terms. We train it, train it additionally around that. So that farmers can really get, a local touch, fully localized touch for them. And what is also, also important that a lot of fires cannot afford themselves to have a economic advisor. And, if they can, that advisor is available, for us limited time, limited hours, has work days, so on. So, having a adviser really that is available twenty four seven, throughout the year in their language. That's really breakthrough for that. Hayete
Accessibility is key here. Many small scale farmers are not heavy platform users. And can't afford to have all the apps. So the importance of a streamline, accessible and affordable tool they'll actually use is huge. It's an important pursuit. Supporting farmers and optimizing agriculture when small and medium sized farms are on the decline. Matija
Take a example of the Europe European Union. So, yeah, in two thousand, there was sick over sixteen million farms in European Union. In twenty twenty, there was, nine million. So it declined for seven million. And, official or European Union that there will be three point nine million farms in twenty forty. So the question is who will produce food So at the moment, supporting everybody who is in a food production, who is farming is essential really to provide them good enough livelihood to to support them, to to look, achieve profitability to mitigate risks. Otherwise, otherwise, we'll really experience global systematic problem. That's why a lot of countries are really thinking, and prioritizing digital agriculture as, as, and potomation, agriculture as something that is truly needed for global food system to work. Hayete
Matilla is optimistic that Agriviets streamline, and accessible user experience will help them reach more small and medium sized forms and help reverse the trend of so many farms disappearing. Matija
Small and medium farms that are essential for global system to work, they have hard time to adopt more complex digital solutions. So agreement, is really fit to them to get the knowledge to get real time insights in a very simple way. So it can really support. And, I believe that, not just, aggregate, but every similar solution will truly change the way farms currently do their their farming. With the AI adviser, when they take a look at the, what they described initially where so far, the digitalization agriculture touched primarily bigger farms and their ecosystems with a adviser that is so available, to all the farms no matter of their size, no matter of the language, as well. So we believe that we can accelerate, that, route to the market and, routes to as many farms, much faster. So we we truly believe that, Ed as a Abiromic adviser will support us really to accelerate our our rules to SMB parts. Hayete
Agreevy's borrower for success is high. They are mindful of broader global food system trends and the latest climate impact reports. Measuring their sustainability impact is just as important as their growing business use cases. Matija
We try to see them, but agriculture has a climate that agriculture has on on water. On so every day has gone soil on every aspect of environment. That's one. And also, we try to measure the impact on the livelihood as well of farms. So then we measure the impact on, on the environment. So agriculture, is an entire, entirely food production, contributes for one third of greenhouse gas emissions. And, with adopting the regenerative practices and, digitalization is very important to to support that. Agriculture cannot adjust to reduce emissions. It can become net positive. Which means it can offset other in industries as well. So that's powerful. That's really bar powerful change. And, this is how we try to measure how much, EBITDA can we do with farms, and how how we can help them actually to accelerate their their, reduction of their climate footprint, and becoming that positive. Hayete
Matia and his team achieved some environmental and so impact over the last ten years. But I've been limited in their ability to really have the global reach to small and medium sized farmers. It's exciting. To see the way a powerful new technology like generative AI can catalyze growth in a company already doing good work. And enable them to quickly scale to reach their target population and extend their impact. And they're not slowing down anytime soon. As Agreevy ed moves through its first year on the market with existing customers, Agreevy is moving forward with other tools to support and change farmers' lives for the better by refining their methods of data collection and providing actionable insights. Matija
We are strongly investing in, in a lot of predictive analytics. So actionable insights where we're we're trying to push as much information to farms that is actionable because there is a lot of data, but farmers are not data analysts. So, if you want to really support them, you need to provide them really actionable in site, and this is a a strong area of our investment, and, that that's one pillar of, our future growth and innovation. The second one is really supporting them, with data collection as they're they're not used to collecting data. So when you think of, fiber logging logging in to some web application and entering the data versus a gravy ad asking you ask asking a fire, hey, did you spray today? So and he says yes. Well, which product did you use? He just chooses and, writes down, how much an automatic automatically goes to the traceability system and secures, all the compliance. So this is the way for for us. Hayete
Agreevy is delivering their products to the market as a white label solution, meaning companies can tailor the product for exactly what they need, and brand it accordingly. This collaborative approach is the smart route to market scaling with a company that the farmers know and trust creates a powerful network effects. In a traditional and conservative industry, such as agriculture. Brand loyalty plays a major role in the buying process of a farm. White labeling allows Agreevy Ed to reach more farmers. Those who might not buy from a big agriculture company or an unfamiliar brand, are more likely to embrace tech associated with regional or local companies that they're loyal to. It is also a smart approach to overcome farmer's skepticism over the technology by branding it with the suppliers they trust. Matija
We are empowering every single company in the agricultural value chain to have their own advisor and bring it to their farms. Which so this is accelerating our go to market. We, we, the adviser and, empowering everybody really, not not for us. Okay. Agree will build one big adviser, but really to empower every single company in the value chain to bring in their advisors to their parts. So this is something that we see as a as completely different, different and new, new initiative on the market. Hayete
Because farmers are at the center of the agricultural value chain, keeping them centered during product development ends up helping everyone involved. This is where we see a powerful multiplier effect from AI in Agreevy ed. There will hopefully be a positive impact for these companies throughout the value chain as they get more specialized information and recommendation. From the companies on the input side of the value chain, like seed manufacturers, crop protection companies, fertilizer companies, and tractor manufacturers, to the output site like food and beverage retail companies. And just as important, by using best farming practices, farmers will be able to reduce the amount of food wasted in their production process. Matija
Food waste is is a huge problem as, one third all food produced globally is wasted. A lot of that waste happens in households in the end, but, a lot of that happens in production as well. If you take a look at, that, we need to increase, food production on a single hectare or a single field by sixty percent till twenty fifty If we solve food waste, we actually need need to, to increase the productivity less. So there is opportunity as well to mitigate that by handling food waste. That's important piece. And even more important, number is that, of majority of fruit and vegetable, forty five percent of, so almost half of everything that is that that is producing fruit and veg vegetable is wasted. So that's that's really terrible. And we need to fix that So that's not sustainable in every single way. Hayete
Large quantities of food are lost during production. In fact, The most food loss occurs before the produce arrives at your local grocery store. Often, food loss happens as a result of crop production choices and internal farm management. Processes Agreevey aid aims to streamline for maximal efficiency. So there is a domino effect. A more accessible, accurate twenty four seven agronomic adviser makes food production more efficient, leading to a reduction in food waste. Which in turn reduces food insecurity. And while most food loss happens before it reaches the grocery store, Matia reminds us there is one way the consumer can really help reduce food waste. Matija
So I'm a promoter of something that, I call buy ugly food. So if you know that those curvy carrots so everybody likes to buy the straight ones because it's easier to peel. In the end. But, but, this is the reason why why a lot of, food is wasted or, because simply doesn't meet the visual characteristics, that consumers ask. So we need to work a lot on, really making consumers aware that, it's about nutrition. Nutrition matters, no deluxe. Hayete
I can resonate with what Matiya is saying when I write from Europe in the United States. I remember going to a shop, a supermarket, and I saw eggs that were white, and I saw fruits that were shiny. And I thought it was weird. It was so different from my home country. Green up in France, friends are not meant to be perfect eggs or browned. And not perfect either. And when I came to United States, they saw this aim for perfection in the stores And for me, it was weird. But at the end of the day, it doesn't need to be perfect. It's very tasty even if it's not looking perfect. And so I really resonate with what he just said. When food goes to waste because consumers don't want to buy a mishapen piece of fruit, all the energy and water it takes to grow, harvest, transport and package it goes to waste. And when that piece of perfectly good fruit goes to landfill and rods, It actually produces greenhouse gas. Matija
On fruit side, so three crops, there are more on the positive side. At the moment. But, if you go to more machinery intensive production that is, more on the negative climate negative side because it involves a lot of, tillage, for example. So deep tillage that, when you when you teal the soil, nitrogen evaporates, a lot of things, evaporates, So, so, loses a it's it's nutrients, and this is one factor. Or, for example, when you take a look at, fertilize So currently, a majority of practices are, homogeneous. So you you simply apply the same, rate across the field while you could do a site specific. The same applies, to crop protection. So with the precision agriculture, tools and methods, you can decrease use of, fertilizers and crop protection over fifty percent. Those are strong impacts. This is the opportunity really for firms, to apply technology to help them actually become, fully positive Hayete
Matia owned and operated this blueberry farm until just last year. When he decided to focus on running a gravy full time, Matija
I was a farmer for ten years. So I'm literally driving the tractor, doing the harvest, the organizing everything. So I I did it in payroll with my family as well. But, at the moment, I needed to choose over the priorities altogether as agreed. It grew a lot. So I was traveling a lot. I'm still traveling a lot. So I need it to prioritize. Farming is a full time job, and that is important. So, having it as a hobby, we wanted, that somebody somebody really takes care of it well. Every single day. So, we're gonna travel over one hundred days a year. So that's that's tough. Hayete
If he ever does return to farming, he knows he would use a gravy ed. Matija
I was using the farm management platform. Continue. Yeah. So, I was using that, but, unfortunately, so we launched, agree we had So in the middle of this year, on the market. So, yeah, I didn't have a far, where we lost that. Hayete
I agree with equipping not only the large farmers, but now the small and mid sized farmers with the centralized tools they need, meeting farmers where they're at, and generating AI makes this much more effective and interactive for them and actually accessible. Agrivia just launched a few months ago, so it's too early to tell the full impact this AI powered customer centered technology will have on global food production. But like Matilla said, even just a few small changes can really optimize a farmer's yield. So we'll have to wait and see. It's interesting to see how AI can actually act as a catalyst for companies who are already innovating with a few years of market experience and precise data. In the case of Agreevey, their harnessing AI by feeding the years of good and precise data that their initial farm management software provided to them is giving them a jump start and an opportunity to scale to reach more people with lower barrier to entry and more tools. So while it might seem simple, okay. They've produced an AI chatbot. It's actually a really huge step forward. In reaching this farming population who were largely without data driven technology to help them make critical decision in their daily farm operation. Simplicity is the whole point. I'm really excited to see what the impact of Agri Vied will be. They launched in the fall of twenty twenty three, so it will take one year crop cycle to measure the productivity impact that AI will have on thousands of farms currently using it. We are just beginning to see the way innovative companies are driving revolutionary change, and the potential positive downstream effects are enormous. When we hear people discuss the world changing potential of AI, they're not talking about specifics, but here it is a concrete impact. AgriV is empowering smaller and medium sized farms with the ability to improve their product activity, the quality of the food, and at the same time be friendly to the environment. All this with the data driven approach and a simple interface. Hayete
Thank you for listening to Pivotal. I'd love to hear your story in your pivotal moment. So don't hesitate to follow me and share only ten. Audence information is also available in the show notes. Our show is produced by large media. That's L a r j media. Special thanks to Yen Yang and our partners at We Communications. 
