IICA launches competition for startups to participate in Digital Agriculture Week

San José, 2 March 2022 (IICA). Representatives of the University of Wageningen (Netherlands), Bayer, Microsoft, Agrosmart and officials from the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) launched Digital Agriculture Week, a forum in which startups and other key players will exchange ideas to promote the digital transformation of agriculture in the Americas.
 
The launch included a call for proposals aimed at Agtech startups from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) that have developed digital solutions available for agricultural use. Fifteen digital ventures will be selected from these applicants to participate in person, with all expenses paid, at Digital Agriculture Week. As additional benefits, they may present their technological innovations, access high-level lectures and exchange ideas with international organizations for digital transformation.
 
Digital Agriculture Week will take place from 16 to 19 May in a hybrid format, in person at IICA headquarters in San José, Costa Rica, and online.
 
Those startups interested must register before 5 April using the form available at the website https://www.misionada.iica.int/?lang=en. Startups will be chosen by a specialist panel, made up of strategic partners in the initiative, leading figures in this area and IICA staff members.
 
As reported at the launch event, assessment criteria will include the potential of digital solutions to improve production, sustainability and inclusion of agrifood systems, with priority given to the feasibility of implementing pilots that can use the solution in different countries in the region.
 
Participating at this initial meeting were IICA Director General Manuel Otero; Laurens Klerkx, head professor of the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group of Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands; and Mariana Vasconcelos, CEO and cofounder of Agrosmart, both leading figures who support IICA in its digital agriculture initiative. Luciano Braverman, Microsoft Director of Education for Latin America, and Beatriz Arrieta, Regional Manager Food Chain Value for Bayer, also participated in the event.
 
The companies chosen as part of the competition will develop pilot projects with IICA and use their solutions in the member states of this hemispheric organization specializing in agriculture and rurality.
 
Manuel Otero commented that “The digital transformation of agriculture is inevitable and is starting to accelerate; it is a central issue in the IICA agenda.” He added that “Digital technologies are an essential element in transforming agrifood systems” and that their incorporation leads to a number of benefits perfectly aligned with the challenges facing the agrifood sector as a whole and with the new demands of society.
 
He also commented that “Startups offer a broad range of solutions and are consolidated as a key pillar of digital agricultural transformation,” emphasizing the efforts that IICA has been promoting in terms of digital agriculture.
 
Along the same lines, Mariana Vasconcellos, CEO and cofounder of Agrosmart, stated that the digital transformation of agriculture is fundamental due to the need to “increase food production by almost 70% in the next years to feed the 10 billion people” that the world will have by 2050, as the world faces up to climate change, scarcity of resources such as land and water, and the increasing pressure of the consumer market for quality food inputs.
 
Vasconcellos continued, “This is why data and technologies are essential; digital transformation in agriculture is slow but exponential, and we need venture capital as well. With these initiatives from IICA and cooperation in different forms between stakeholders, sharing experiences with other entrepreneurs and listening to different parties, governments and corporations about how we can help, technology can become a reality for all the world’s farmers.”
 
Laurens Klerkx, head professor of the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group of Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands, commented that digital transformation for agriculture must be inclusive, hence solutions must be conceived that take into account the diversity and realities of each country in the region, so that they have value for all stakeholders.
 
“Startups are very important; many have young entrepreneurs who want to have a transformative, disruptive impact, but we have to work and think with the people for whom the solution is intended, look at how it’s going to work, what characteristics it must have, guide them, connect them with public research to make a suitable tool design. With these spaces, IICA is doing that very well.”
 
Shared vision
 
The representatives of Bayer and Microsoft highlighted the alignment between IICA’s digital transformation vision and what their companies, which support Digital Agriculture Week, are doing in this regard.
 
Bayer’s Beatriz Arrieta stated that “Bayer is aligned with IICA’s proposal. We see that digital transformation is the road that makes it possible to continue growing and offer farmers tools for a truly sustainable agriculture. We have to encourage startups to send in their proposals, to tell people that this IICA program exists so that together we can truly bring about digital transformation to all agriculture in the region.”
 
Luciano Braverman commented that “It is a pleasure to work together with IICA on this type of project, the alignment that exists in IICA’s and Microsoft’s vision of how to somehow be able to empower the ecosystem of agriculture in Latin America to convert it into a motor of growth in the region, one that is sustainable, inclusive and fundamentally resilient,” indicating that issues such as connectivity, digital skills and digital transformation as a whole are the pillars of their action agenda.
 
It is precisely with Digital Agriculture Week that IICA hopes startups and other stakeholders in the technological and agricultural sector can submit, propose and coordinate ideas for the digital transformation of agricultural systems, using this space to share technological solutions and promote their use in agriculture.
 
Representatives from organizations will be participating who work directly with this type of company, as well as public and private organizations interested in the digitalization of agriculture.
 
Some of the themes to be covered are: Digital Transformation—opportunities and challenges in a new era; Digitalization of Agriculture—barriers, impacts and perspectives; Lessons learned from a real experience of agricultural digitalization; and Roles and synergies of public and private stakeholders in the digital era.
 
Presentations from startups will be featured on digital solutions to increase production and efficiency, minimize the environmental footprint and tackle climate change, boost trade, value chains and the cooperation of stakeholders; and supporting farmers’ decisions and management at productive, economic and financial level.
 
This event is part of the hemispheric initiative launched by IICA entitled Mission Digital Agriculture in Action (ADA), which aims to promote the dynamic and inclusive digital transformation of agriculture in the Americas.

More information:
Federico Bert, IICA Digital Agriculture Specialist.
federico.bert@iica.int