Meet xFarm: The Swiss start-up that is digitizing the agriculture industry
In the ITU AI For Good Innovation Factory Challenge is supporting start-ups that are using artificial intelligence (AI) to create next-generation innovations within the agriculture sector. xFarm were the winners of our recent live pitching session, with a unique digital solution “created by farmers for farmers” that allows farmers to efficiently manage their crops, logistics, machinery and documentation all via one app.
We spoke to Matteo Vanotti, CEO and one of the co-founders of xFarm about this winning solution.
Here are three things you should know about the AI for Good Innovation Factory winner:
Can you tell us about your winning solution? (Tell us how you invented your solution and/or how you founded your startup.)
I have worked for years in the FinTech market while managing my family farm. As a tech-guy, I have seen how tech was changing a lot of markets, except agriculture. I started looking for a tool to manage my farm, trying well established American software services, but none of them were easy and flexible to use. I decided to build my own Farm Management System, and after some first trials I started to share it with neighboring farmers. After promising feedback from the first users, I founded, along with Salvatore Ferullo and Martino Poretti, xFarm with the mission of creating a digital ecosystem for managing farms in an easy, mobile, and holistic way.
Where are you from and what regions do you work in?
xFarm Technologies is a Swiss company with 4 offices: the HQ in Lugano, Switzerland, the development department in Milan, Italy, the agronomic R&D department in Rome, Italy, and the Iberian branch in Barcelona. We started selling our service in Switzerland and Italy at first, but now we’re actively selling in more than 24 countries (mainly in Europe and south America).
Watch the winning pitch here
How can your solution help to solve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals?
Our solution is actively involved in the crop cultivation for nutrition, industrial and bioenergy purposes. The main purpose of the solution is to give suggestions to the farmers to improve efficiency, improving the economic sustainability through cost reduction, lowering the use of inputs, reducing the ecological footprint and improving the social sustainability through transparency and data-sharing with the supply chain.
If you are interested in digital agriculture, learn how ITU and FAO are supporting innovation in the Focus Group on “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) for Digital Agriculture” here
