Global Agriculture

crop.zone and Nerit’e work together to develop better farming solutions

02 March 2021, Germany: 40% of Nitrogen fertilizers is wasted due to farmers inaccessibility to soil monitoring tools.

This overfertilization pollutes our soils, water streams and atmosphere, harming growers’ ability to build a sustainable livelihood.

That is why we decided to get a team of young international founders with different areas of expertise ranging from Engineering and Computer Science to Chemistry, Design and Business together to develop a technology for on-site, real-time soil nutrient monitoring.

Also Read: CABI BioProtection Portal now available in Uganda

The Mexico- and Germany-based team created a spectral analyzer sensor that can be calibrated to measure soil Nitrate-nitrogen and Potassium on-site, enabling optimization of fertilization strategies in real-time with data-driven recommendations.

Unlike laboratories, which provide more thorough soil analyses at the cost of slower results or other precision agriculture technologies, our device can directly predict nutrient concentrations in the soil, focusing on cost-efficiency. What sets us apart is our unique approach: we have decided to work with fertilizer companies to expand their service in a new model where their sales to customers are based on the data acquired with our sensor. This novel approach is optimized to increase the

ROI of growers to increase while firms build trust and become more sustainable in the long run. Fertilizer companies subscribe to our scalable service model. We then provide the software and

hardware needed for the duration of the subscription. Thus, firms can offer growers monitoring of nutrient needs and on-demand purchase of specific products directly from them. Our Start-Up is currently building the Product and starting to focus on the service that will be provided. We are looking into market entry through funding and partnerships in the upcoming months.