On 9th September 2021, Brandon Day, COO of The Yield Lab Institute, has presented the final eight projects of the Sustainable Agtech Challenge alongside Piedad Martin, Deputy Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the UN Environment Programme; Michael Hayes, Venture Partner of The Yield Lab Latam and Carolina Trivelli, Senior Strategic Analysis Advisor at FAO.
Sustainable AgTech Challenge is presented by The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and The Yield Lab Institute aim to identify AgTech Startups, innovations, and technologies that can be a solution for some of the most pressing issues of climate change in agri-food systems in the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC) especially contributes to the following areas: sustainably increases productivity, mitigates greenhouse gas emissions, or promotes adaptation to climate change. Sustainable AgTech Challenge is collaborated by IDB/LAB and FONTAGRO, sponsored by Amazon Web Services and Media Partners are Agrigate global and Gerencia Ambiental.
The Sustainable AgTech Challenge received 115 applications all over the world. Among them, 84 were from Latin American countries and another 31 were from countries such as the United States, Spain, China, Japan, Canada, France, Tanzania among others. All the innovations presented responded to three main categories. Specialty crops with 59 applications; Row crops with 48 and finally the Proteins category with 21 ideas. Among those submissions, the following final 8 startups have been selected as the best submissions.
Bloomspal
According to this AgriTech startup, it is built for high-risk supply chains. It helps importers and exporters to discover, manage and engage with each other with cloud software which is strategically crafted to centralize the entire procurement operation for one of the most fast-paced and high-risk supply chains.
Cladonia
Computer Vision-based soil and compost assessment software which identifies, characterizes, and quantifies multiple groups of relevant soil microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and protozoans), capturing relevant and with high-throughput data, at near-zero marginal costs is introduced with this startup. It says that startup is a microscopy-based biological profiling solution for soil and compost that is flexible, inexpensive, scalable, and actionable.
ClearLeaf
ClearLeaf S.A. was launched in Costa Rica to commercialize GotaBlanca©, a non-toxic contact action liquid emulsion that uses nanotechnology for the control and management of fungal attacks and bacterial diseases on living plants and post-harvest on fruits, vegetables, and flowers. This is a patent-pending technology, organic certified in Japan and the EU, to provide a line of non-toxic fungicides and bactericides for agricultural use.
Climate Sense
This startup is mainly focused on improving production processes mainly in the agricultural sector with climate data in real-time. To achieve this they have created their own hardware and software development and a low-cost weather station with more than 8 sensors that feed their software algorithms to help agricultural producers in securing financial products and services.
Mi Terro
Mi Terro is the world’s first advanced material company that partners with food companies and farmers to create home compostable, single-use packaging materials made from plant-based agricultural waste as an alternative to plastic usage. Therefore, this startup is focused on creating ocean degradable and home compostable flexible packaging materials made from agricultural waste to replace plastic and paper.
SAVRpak
SAVRpak is a technology company that uses compostable, non-chemical sachets to extend the quality especially the shelf life of foods, agriculture products. This startup manufactures a patented universal packaging tech that extends the shelf life of agriculture products like leafy greens and berries by as much as 2 weeks.
The Earth Says
The startup is focused on increasing yields and income per hectare, and reducing the risks of low production by optimizing pollination processes through a complete analysis of field conditions and pollinators, implementing monitoring technology before and during the pollination process.
Ucrop.It
This collaborative mobile platform articulates agro actors to boost crops’ cycle’s expected results, through the simple registration of agronomic events and its realization evidence on a blockchain.
SOURCE Brandon Day, COO of The Yield Lab Institute