Exclusive | Esteban Vásquez, CEO & Co-Founder The Earth Says on Agriculture Innovation and Scalability
The success of the agricultural process depends on pollination. Improving this complex process affects the yield directly. Latin America-based startup The Earth Says optimizes it to achieve the maximum possible performance in your field.
Agrigate Global’s Saura Panigrahi spoke with Esteban Vásquez, Co-Founder and CEO of The Earth Says, about his startup and the experience at The Sustainable Agtech Challenge brought to you by The Yield Lab Institute and UNEP.
Congratulations on making it to the Final-8 of The Sustainable Agtech Challenge by the Yield Lab Institute. How has the experience gone?
It has been a very good experience, we have had several meetings to put the performance laboratory staff in context about what our priorities and needs are to develop the areas that facilitate scalability.
How would you like to introduce your startup/innovation? Tell us more about the core area of operations and your team.
The Earth Says is a company that increases the profitability of crops through the use of technology to monitor phenological states and the activity of pollinators during the key stages of cultivation, delivering alerts and recommendations, improving response times, and generating a record of each cultivation process.
We are currently five in the team with experts in biotechnology, information technology, administration, and business. Alonso is in charge of the technological and scientific development, Diego is the administrator of the financing, Mario organizes the logistics behind the processes, Francisco gives support in the area of software and networks and I (Esteban) am in charge of the strategy that will make us achieve the world.
The Agriculture Sector is very dynamic. What are the major challenges you are facing?
One of the challenges that we constantly see is the adoption of technology in the agricultural sector, on the other hand, we also believe that the validation of technologies in the agro-industry to increase profitability and production are critical for the challenges of the future.
In recent times, agri-tech has become one of the favorites for investors. What would be your pitch to a prospective investor?
Since I was a child, I have been listening to the terrible effects of climate change, and now it is real, agriculture is very affecting because the changes in the weather disturb the cycle of crops and sources available to Pollinators, negatively impacting proliferation. This reduces the yields and quality of fruit, vegetable, and seeds becoming more difficult every year to obtain the desired performance. For this reason, we created the earth says to improve profitability through a complete analysis service of plant stages to reduce the risk of bad and delaying management in the field. We think everybody is part of the problem what are you waiting to be part of the solution.
Agritech is booming with innovative ideas. What would be your advice to young entrepreneurs who would like to venture into this segment?
Identify a problem that you can check and find quick and inexpensive ways to validate that problem with as many people as possible. Ask, search and discuss your problems to find faster solutions.
Finally, tell us more about your plans.
We want to expand to regional markets such as Peru, Argentina during the next semester and the second semester to begin prospecting in the United States market seeking to take a big step towards scalability.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the views of Agrigate Global.