Fotenix enabling more sustainable and faster agriculture decision making with Peak
Agricultural diagnostics company and farming ability provider, Fotenix has partnered with the Decision Intelligence company, Peak to help transform the agricultural sector with accelerated decision making.
Agriculture faces many challenges, including an estimated 3.6 million tonnes of yearly food waste on the farm, according to research from WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme). But food waste isn’t the only challenge, according to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations), between 20 to 40% of global crop production is lost to pests each year. A turbulent year has brought about a unique opportunity for agriculture to rebuild in a sustainable and resilient way. Agriculture is something that everyone relies on, which is why Fotenix sought out an innovation partner to help safeguard and advance the future of the industry.
Fotenix uses specialised machine learning enabled cameras in the field, deploying colours of light, to monitor crop health. The protected key technology is three-dimensional multispectral imaging which allows laboratory analysis at an economic cost, ensuring data-driven decisions. They work alongside major horticultural producers (Berry Gardens) and Plant Breeding Research (CHAP, Rothamsted) as well as UK robotics providers such as Saga Robotics and Small Robot Company, to ensure sustainable food production.
With large and complex crop data to be analysed, Fotenix selected Peak’s Decision Intelligence system to scale the machine learning models that analyse images of plants and enable real-time AI led decision-making for farmers. As an advanced Amazon Web Services (AWS) ML Competency partner, Peak’s system is integrated into Fotenix’s in-field cameras, combining disparate sources of data, including historical images of diseased crops and enriching it with AI. This is critical to anticipating and predicting crop issues in real-time, with actionable decisions for farmers to take, as well as syncing outputs directly back to other machines in the field for treatment measures.
With the help of Peak, Fotenix is able to drive crop yields improvements by +10%, reduce costs per hectare by -20% and improve margins for growers by +5% (figures given for soft-fruit production in the UK).
Charles Veys, Managing Director at Fotenix said: “Fotenix acts as a conduit between the crop and the equipment used to cultivate it, focusing on building diagnostic ability across the sector and empowering machinery providers. With the help of Peak’s Decision Intelligence software we’re enabling real-time decision intelligence to significantly impact crop yields, soil health and make faster, more accurate decisions when it comes to sustainable farming practices.”
“Fotenix is transforming the way the world farms, with AI supercharging great decision making, and empowering farmers, in real time through Decision Intelligence,” said Richard Potter, Co-founder and CEO at Peak “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Fotenix and working alongside Charles to make a real impact on sustainability and the future of the industry.”
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Karen Hildebrand, AWS Head of Agriculture Tech: “Peak and Fotenix are developing new and innovative approaches on AWS to nourish the world. Agriculture, like many industries, is in the midst of a titanic shift to the cloud for many reasons, including cost efficiency, speed of innovation and agility to adapt to changing circumstances. AWS is working with partners and customers to innovate in every area of agriculture as data and machine learning are providing the insights producers need to better understand the health of soil, plants, animals, fish and fibre.”
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