Precision Farming made easy and connected
Hello Mr. Thiérart. Hello.
You are co-founders of MyEasyFarm.
And I leave it to you to introduce yourself
and to introduce your company, which you co-founded.
Well, my name is François Thiérart.
I am co-founder of a start-up company.
We are active in the so-called AgTech sector, i.e. Digital Agriculture.
It was founded in 2017, i.e. almost three years ago.
The company is based in Reims.
We are in the "Village by CA".
The company was founded by my brother and me.
My father and grandfather were agricultural machinery manufacturers.
And my brother is an agricultural equipment dealer.
I went to work in the IT sector.
The idea behind MyEasyFarm is to facilitate
the simpler transmission of data to and from agricultural equipment.
And why? Because we noticed on the field
that the farmer uses a lot of digital data.
He has satellite data, for example from Sentinel satellites.
Possibly from drones.
He has the weather data.
For example, he has data on the heterogeneity of his soil.
But all this data is ‘data inside a silo’, as we say in IT.
The data are completely separated from each other.
And it is very difficult to transfer them to agricultural machinery,
to be able to utilize them for precision farming.
What is ‘Precision Farming’? It is the right amount in the right place at the right time.
That describes precision farming in one sentence.
Why does one want to do that? In order to use all this digital data.
They are used in agricultural machines.
Since this technology did not exist yet, we then decided
to found the platform MyEasyFarm.
The main objective was to design a system that transfers data to agricultural equipment.
We very quickly also noticed something else about agricultural equipment:
Tractors, combine harvesters and field sprayers are equipped with numerous sensors.
They have many sensors, and their data is not used at all.
We will now even be able to use the MyEasyFarm platform
to transfer the data to the machines and also to transfer it back.
The agricultural equipment functions as part of the Internet of Things, or ‘IoT’.
The data are transmitted by the agricultural machines.
All of this is aggregated within the platform environment
in order to allow us to analyze the data.
To help the farmers to improve their cultivation methods.
So that they can optimize them and use less fertilizer and less pesticides and thus
can achieve the best possible yield.
Would it be possible at this point to give us
a brief introduction of the products you offer?
And the technologies you offer through your company?
Sure, I'd love to. What we offer, is what we call a ‘platform’.
We are selling annual subscriptions to farmers.
The subscriptions are available in the form of different packages, but always for the use of the platform.
The main goal is, as I mentioned, the exchange of data with the machines.
But it is also about bringing all this data together in a single place.
For example, if you look at a certain plot of land of a farmer,
then he receives the weather data specifically for this plot.
Including the soil data and the map.
He gets the yield card and the cards with fertilizer recommendations.
And all come from the same platform.
This makes it possible to centrally collate all this data in one place.
This is what we offer to the farmers.
It is at the same time a so-called ‘collaborative platform’.
For a cooperative ...
I don't know if they also exist in Germany and China.
In France, at least, they exist.
The cooperatives often offer services to farmers.
These, again, are also segregated within silos.
The cooperative wants to collect all this data on one platform
and exchange information with the farmers.
The agricultural consultants of a cooperative can use them to
develop services and prepare maps, for example from satellites,
which the farmer then receives.
If he saves them in the farmer's account via MyEasyFarm,
he can use them directly.
In comparison, if one has no access to a platform,
one would have to achieve all this using a USB stick and mails, which would be,
in any case, very tedious.
So your customers are private farmers and cooperatives.
Do you also have other customers?
Our end customers are the farmers.
Farmers or contractors, who operate in some similar ways.
They all have agricultural equipment that they use on their fields.
But we do not sell directly to the farmers.
We sell via the cooperatives.
For example, in the Grand Est Region we sell via VIVESCIA,
the largest cooperative in the region, which markets MyEasyFarm.
It offers MyEasyFarm to its members. That is to 8,000 farmers.
It is only one of the sales partners of MyEasyFarm.
The others are agricultural equipment manufacturers and, in particular, agricultural equipment dealers.
They are also in contact with the farmers.
They can also market MyEasyFarm to them.
So we have two sources: the traders and the cooperatives.
There is hardly any overlap, because the cooperatives are concerned with agronomics.
And not with machinery.
The dealer, on the other hand, does not understand agronomics,
but he is an expert for the machinery.
And what do you estimate is the current number of farmers
using your products?
We are not giving exact numbers at the moment, but we have several hundred users
who have a subscription to MyEasyFarm and who use it.
Mainly customers from France, but meanwhile also from abroad.
From Spain and Italy.
And Eastern Europe.
We are present there, because a part of our team is based in Russia.
Now it is also launching in Germany.
Unfortunately not yet in China. We are not there yet.
But how ...
What prices do you offer to farmers, and which to cooperatives?
What are the costs for a farmer
to use your platform?
We offer subscriptions.
These are annual subscriptions, and you can see them on the website.
The subscription price is calculated based on
the size of the farm, usually measured in hectares.
As far as the price is concerned,
it falls between two Euros per hectare and about five Euros per hectare.
Five or six Euros, depending on the size of the company.
And it depends on the module, because we have, for example,
modules for satellite maps.
We have an app for tractor drivers.
So we offer a few options.
Tailored to the needs of the farmers.
And we offer a special subscription for agricultural consultants
of the cooperatives, facilitating an easier exchange
between the consultants and the farmers.
What percentage of farmers do you reach with your digital solution?
How many are interested?
What percentage in numbers?
But also in terms of the types of farmers.
The market is quite big, as …
… in France we have about 100,000 farmers
who manage farms of over 100 hectares.
This is a potential market of 100,000 farmers.
There might be about 25,000 with 200 hectares.
Our goal is clearly to focus on the number of subscribers.
We also want to reach farmers with new, compatible equipment
rather than those using very old machines.
We focus more on farms, in the medium and large size ranges.
If one considers that France accounts for about 15% of the European market...
If you multiply that by six, you have the size of our potential market.
In Europe.
As I said, we have the ...
... the farmers managing more than 100 hectares
We also work a lot with contractors.
They have many modern machines because they often replace them.
They have higher utilization rates, because they work for several farmers.
They therefore have the machines ...
..and they are more interested in solutions like ours.
If you look countries further away, like Brazil,
we are not there at all and ... we are just starting to reach out there.
There the farms sizes are very different, and they function differently.
There a farm ...
A small farm has 5,000 hectares there. In Europe they are in the range of about 100 hectare.
This is a completely different order of magnitude and they are very interested
in using solutions like MyEasyFarm.
My next question was: How do you intend to increase your market share?
I believe you have a vision?
Are there other things, that ...
We are still small.
As I said, we currently have subscribed several hundred farmers in Europe.
Therefore we naturally want to consolidate our market share in France.
And we want to enter into as many distribution agreements as possible with cooperatives.
With cooperatives just like VIVESCIA. And we are currently repeating this by reaching out to other cooperatives.
And we want to enter into more distribution agreements also with the other customer group.
With the agricultural equipment dealers.
And especially, we want to expand outside of France.
To other countries in Europe and to Brazil, which I mentioned earlier.
I do not know the Asian market well, but we see that it is evolving.
They cultivate plants other than those, that you usually see in Western Europe.
Some countries in Africa are developing and now use better agricultural machinery,
which is compatible with MyEasyFarm.
So we have a great interest to expand our export business.
What benefits and advantages does a farmer gain
in respect of cultivation methods, if he uses this platform?
The big advantage is, as I said previously:
To apply the right amount in the right place at the right time.
You need less
of the so-called ‘means of production’, i.e. the products and supplies that the farmer uses.
While still achieving the same yield.
The amount of seed stock and fertilizer can be reduced.
The amount of pesticides.
At the same time one wants to achieve maximum yield from the plot.
We see this also against the background
of a rapidly increasing world population.
The areas available for agricultural use, on the other hand are not, and their share overall even decreases.
Especially in Europe.
Therefore, we are forced to achieve maximum yield per hectare on less and less farm land.
We need to take environmental protection into account, or the so-called agroecology.
We should reduce the required amount of pesticides and fertilizers by implementing these methods.
Both, in China as well as in Europe.
CO2 emissions, for example, must be reduced globally.
Today agriculture is responsible for about 20% of CO2 emissions.
This is a very high percentage.
But especially in agriculture
the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by a substantial amount is huge.
Through modifying cultivation methods.
Especially when planting field crops,
CO2 emissions are strongly correlated to the use of mineral fertilizers.
They account for 70% of the total emissions of an agricultural holding.
So if you manage, to reduce the amount of fertilizer
or mineral fertilizer through substitution with organic fertilizer,
CO2 Emissions can be reduced.
Europe is currently experiencing rapid change.
And one hears a lot about the reform of the agricultural policies of the European Union.
A good example. The reforms will definitely go in this direction.
In Europe, a ‘New Green Deal’ is being discussed.
Especially in respect of agriculture the discussion raises the notion of ‘Farm to Fork’.
Meaning "From the farm yard onto the table".
The initiative intends to provide support to farmers,
so that they can reduce their ecological footprint.
And usually that happens, by reducing the quantities of supplies used.
By not using pesticides, and by using less fertilizer.
But at the same time farmers should continue to achieve sufficient yields.
We have conducted trials …
right from the beginning, i.e. for three years. Jointly, with cooperatives and farmers.
Nowadays a farmer can
save between twenty Euros to eighty Euros per hectare
per year. Simply by implementing precision agriculture.
This is not a small amount.
The subscription to MyEasyFarm comes up to between two and five Euros per hectare.
So it is possible for him, to achieve a considerable profit
through precision agriculture methods.
The farmer achieves an economic gain, which, in the short term,
is the most important gain for the farmer.
For a farmer, it is today not ...
possible to become a very rich farmer, especially if the farm size is small.
So economic efficiency is of prime importance.
I also talked about environmental protection.
Environmental protection can have an impact on economic efficiency.
In France, for example, we are discussing the introduction of the "Low CO2 Footprint" seal of approval.
These are projects, in which the farmers are paid,
if they make an effort, to reduce their CO2 emissions.
For example, if a farmer has emitted one hundred tons in 2019
and if in the year 2020 he emitted only eighty tons,
then he gains a CO2 credit of twenty tons.
The twenty tons will be sold on the carbon emissions trading market.
That is one possibility to compensate farmers
for making an effort to reduce their CO2 emissions.
Such projects are currently being implemented everywhere.
This is not only happening in France.
In France, the seal of approval was introduced, elsewhere other projects are being implemented.
These projects are currently being introduced.
They create a framework
to compensate farmers for their efforts to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
With MyEasyFarm by the way, we are currently working on
the introduction of a platform which has already been registered under the name: MyEasyCarbon.
With this platform the farmers will be able to determine
how many tons of CO2 they have emitted less.
The reduction can then be charged back via a dedicated platform.
So the farmers must use this platform, In order to be able
to participate in this CO2 trade?
The sellers of CO2 credits and on the other hand large industrial groups.
I do not mention any names, but they are big companies active in the food industry.
Or companies in the energy sector, whose names I will not mention.
They buy such credits and we are in contact with these companies,
that would like to buy the CO2 credits from the farmers.
Can you imagine further developments
with regard to your products and your digital solutions
that you would like to implement in the future?
Besides CO2 trading, as mentioned, there are other worthwhile issues to pursue.
CO2 is currently a hot topic, because CO2 neutrality
must be achieved by 2050 and it is necessary to act now.
Besides CO2 there is also the issue of biodiversity.
The topic of reduction of pesticides.
In France, for example, we have the scheme "Ecophyto 2025".
There is a certification called "High environmental benefit”
There are numerous of these pressing issues.
Our platform has set itself the goal,
to create awareness among the farmers about the effects of their actions.
For example, if you plant a certain crop on a specific plot of land.
There is, after all, the system of crop rotation. You cannot always plant wheat.
Otherwise soil fatigue will be the result. So one must rotate crops.
This is about agronomics.
But also other issues like CO2 emissions.
Topics such as biodiversity, yields, and other issues.
We would like to provide farmers with the following:
An instrument that helps them, as soon as they have finished the harvest in July,
to select the new plant.
To use simulation: "If I plant beets, I will probably earn that amount."
"But this has implications concerning biodiversity."
At the moment, neonicotinoids are a much talked-about topic.
“If I plant wheat, will my yield be higher?"
"Will I earn less or more?"
We want to enable farmers to simulate, which plant they should be planting.
After planting he must, of course, verify what actually happened.
So that he then can adapt cultivation methods on the basis of this data.
Currently, people talk a lot about the so-called ‘traditional agriculture’.
For example, about ploughing.
People talk about ‘Agriculture of Soil Conservation’,
Where less soil is turned over.
There is talk of organic farming.
Big changes are happening right now in the field of agriculture.
Therefore farmers need instruments to empower them to adopt these changes.
It is our approach and our vision,
that we make such instruments available to the farmers.
This is more of a development in the area of of agronomics for the farmers.
If one looks at the market, one can already foresee now, that there will be autonomous machines.
We do not yet know exactly when, but there will be more and more robots.
We have ..., the champion of the agricultural robots in France.
And these robots you have to ...
... somehow "program" them.
We send data to a tractor.
But it is only the map. The driver is still steering the tractor.
We do not yet know when, but in the future we will probably
use autonomous tractors.
They will be able to work without human intervention.
It will be necessary to program them. That is a different issue.
We are currently working on this,
to develop the machines and to develop our platform.
So that it supports autonomous machines.
You have already presented your platform which aims at providing
connectivity between the data
and facilitate the exchange of different data types.
Is it true that you...
... have something in mind, that makes it possible, to implement
such connectivity solutions jointly in cooperation with other companies?
Absolutely.
The MyEasyFarm platform is very open.
I don't want to start using IT jargon, but we have implemented an API from the start.
To make connections possible.
We offer connections too many other platforms.
Because there are many solutions in agriculture.
The first type of connection, which we have set up,
Provided connections to proprietary platforms of various agricultural equipment manufacturers.
Why? John Deere and CNH, Case New Holland.
And AGCO.
And CLAAS.
All of them have developed proprietary platforms for their agricultural equipment.
If you want to communicate with any machine, the easiest way
is via the manufacturer's platform.
We therefore have developed interfaces to connect to these platforms.
The overarching concept we employ to connect different platforms is called ‘interoperability’.
If you visit any farm, you will see the following:
A combine harvester from CLAAS. Two tractors from John Deere.
A tractor from Case.
And all these machines operate on three different proprietary platforms.
If the farmer uses MyEasyFarm, all these machines can be managed via one platform.
The farmer receives all his data via one platform.
There we also integrate the weather data.
He can select French service providers.
The farmer may use weather stations like Winade, Synchrobe and Météus.
We are familiar with the platforms of these companies.
We can therefore integrate functionality for weather data directly into the MyEasyFarm platform.
The platform is very open.
We are actually connecting to all these solutions.
The solutions are usually quite national in scope, so to speak.
For a new country we usually offer connections to local solution providers.
What must be done to facilitate data exchange?
Generally, between the different solutions available to farmers.
I would say, there is no ‘one-shoe-fits-all’ solution.
Many participants in the market say: "I will create the one platform that does everything".
But that is an illusion.
An enormous number of solutions are available, because agriculture is, per se,
an area that requires a lot of data from many different sources.
It would therefore be very difficult, to integrate all this on one platform.
We have ... platforms, that co-exist.
As well as some projects. In Europe we have currently a project called ‘Atlas’.
Its research goal is to explore how data can be exchanged between multiple platforms.
So we can start to create standards.
I have mentioned agricultural machinery.
There is an organization called ‘AEF’ (Agricultural Industry Electronics Foundation).
It brings together, worldwide, all the agricultural equipment manufacturers.
This organisation has developed a standard, which is registered under the ISO system.
It is called ISOBUS.
ISOBUS is a data exchange format.
Our platform is ISOBUS certified.
So we can exchange data with any type of equipment.
For the machines, we have already created a de facto standard.
However, the weather stations currently
do not use a standardized format for exchanging weather data.
The weather data formats are of course all similar.
But there is no universally recognized standard.
To be able to improve the status quo, one would have to
define globally applicable standards.
It should apply to weather data, satellite data and other types of data.
Let us now talk about another aspect connected to the implementation of platforms.
Who owns the data that is collected via your system?
That is a good question.
A very good question, as it is a much discussed issue.
Especially in agriculture circles. Let’s take a look at the example of John Deere.
There was a wide-ranging discussion, because in their contract,
if you used their platform, they stated: "Permission to use the data is granted."
John Deere therefore uses the data,
because they want to implement preventive maintenance concepts.
Let me give you an example:
Say, 100,000 tractors of the same model are in use in one region.
I can try to draw conclusions from it.
I know what happened when a machine broke down,
so I implement preventive maintenance and say: "This machine has a 90% chance
of breaking down within two hours."
In this case you would prefer to perform
maintenance ahead of the event, rather than wait until it breaks down on the field.
John Deere ran into some problems with this approach.
Therefore some companies started thinking about it.
About, who owns the data.
As you know, we have a legal framework in Europe, called ‘GDPR’ (General Data Protection Regulation).
I.e., we need to implement data privacy. By default, the data belongs to the user.
We comply with ‘GDPR’ requirements and the data always belongs to the farmer.
We are even already a little further ahead, because we implement a seal of quality.
The "Data Agri" seal of quality.
It was developed by the associations FNSEA and ‘Jeunes Agriculteurs’. (‘National Federation of Farmers' Unions’and ‘Young Farmers’)
It includes compliance with ‘GDPR’ (General Data Protection Regulation).
But it goes even further, because the data management is explained in greater detail.
In summary, stated in short: The data belong to the farmer.
And he has the right, to access the data at any time.
They are stored in Europe.
And of course, we do not sell the data
to any international corporation, that might ask us:
"I want to buy the data from MyEasyFarm."
This is an important issue.
I believe that the farmers actually do not know, how valuable their data is.
The cooperatives however, know it very well.
If one enters into a distribution agreement with them,
the IT team of the cooperative will for sure verify exactly
how the data is stored and managed, and whether the requirements of the ‘GDPR’ are complied with.
And also what safety standard are you currently applying
for the storage of data?
Without mentioning the technical IT details:
Our webhosters take care of these things for us.
We work with webhosters.
They are companies like us, that fully comply with ‘GDPR’ data protection requirements,
as well as contract data processing companies for platform hosting.
The data is all backed up.
Everyone is obliged to observe confidentiality.
There is no ... As far as I know, never has been ...
In short: We have never had a problem with it.
That one gets hacked can never be ruled out.
We would, in this case, be victims of our success. But we have not come that far yet.
What do you think regarding policies?
What steps should be taken to facilitate the introduction
of these technologies in the market?
To facilitate intelligent agriculture.
Again a very good question, because ...
... the technology already exists today.
But not because ...
Let's once again take VIVESCIA as our example, which has 8,000 members.
It represents 8,000 farmers, Who are participating in the cooperative.
But just because VIVESCIA entered into a distribution agreement with us,
this did not motivate 8,000 farmers to directly subscribe to MyEasyFarm.
Because there is still a lot of resistance
in agriculture circles regarding the use of such solutions.
The readiness to accept change is partly missing, as well as the necessary knowledge.
This applies to the agricultural consultants and the farmers.
The technology is not the stumbling block.
The stumbling block is, first and foremost, a lack of knowledge.
And, on the part of the farmers, a lack of training to use this technology.
And currently there is no reason for them to move in this direction.
The fact that the agricultural policy of the EU will soon be revised,
and that it will push the farmers towards implementing greener agriculture,
will actually accomplish that...
This will be a bit of a carrot-and-stick approach.
It will incentivise them to do so, to use these new technologies.
There are also incentives by national governments, for example in Italy.
A subsidy scheme was implemented there, called "Agriculture 4.0".
Farmers receive incentives in order to support them
to begin utilizing technologies like those offered by MyEasyFarm.
The demand is huge, because of the financial incentives available for using such technologies.
The same applies to France within the framework of of the announced economic stimulus program.
From 2021 onwards, farmers will be able to receive financial support.
For the purchase of precision farming equipment. This is the currently used term.
The details will be announced in early 2021.
In any case, it will motivate the farmers to modernize their machine parks
and to start using solutions like ours.
For the implementation of precision agriculture.
Where do you see intelligent agriculture in ten years?
I have briefly mentioned this earlier.
Not necessarily intelligent agriculture, but change is the focus.
It is really about agronomics and not primarily about intelligent agriculture.
It is the need to adapt cultivation methods, so that you get the best yield
from the agricultural farm land.
All the while the areas being farmed are becoming smaller rather larger.
This is the most important point. This is the turning point that we will reach.
Not only in France, but also also in Europe and even world-wide.
Like I said, the development towards intelligent agriculture, is driven,
e.g. by the introduction of artificial intelligence.
To diagnose a disease by analysing a photo ...
This is ...
... giving the farmer ...
... time to intervene and to take preventative action.
Artificial intelligence can help the farmer.
By supporting him in an advisory capacity.
The farmer remains the master of his decisions.
The introduction of artificial intelligence provides support to him.
This will not happen in ten years, but it is already being implemented now.
We are cooperating with the University of Champagne-Ardenne.
We are, in the Grand Est region, working on a program to utilize AI,
"Artificial Intelligence Grand Est", which is currently introduced.
One of the three areas addressed is bio-economy.
We are a part of this topic.
It will not come in ten years, it is already happening.
In ten years, there will be autonomous machines,
which are still in the testing stage, at least here in Europe.
And they will truly ...
... facilitate the work on the ...
... plots, without a driver on the tractor.
Thanks for all your answers and your explanations.
Thank you.
to our German and Chinese conversation partners.
I will be glad to exchange views and to answer any questions.
You may pass on my contact details.
I am available for inquiries and for exploring possibilities for cooperation.
Whether in Germany or China.
Thank you very much.