BemAgro CEO: Interpret, visualize, and consolidate information in an organized manner will be a challenge

Date:10-22-2024

In the realm where technology meets agriculture, Johann Coelho, CEO & Founder of BemAgro, stands at the forefront of innovation. This conversation delves into the heart of BemAgro's mission: harnessing the power of AI to revolutionize farming practices. Coelho unveils how their platform transforms aerial imagery into actionable agronomic insights, dramatically reducing herbicide use while boosting efficiency. He also sheds light on BemAgro's fruitful partnership with CNH Industrial and its global expansion. As we peer into the future of Brazilian agriculture, Coelho's vision paints a picture of farms guided by predictive analytics, drones, and real-time sensors, promising a new era of sustainable and productive farming.

Johann Coelho

CEO & Founder of BemAgro

How has your company integrated AI technologies into its agricultural operations, and what specific challenges do you aim to solve?

BemAgro uses AI and computer vision to convert data from tractors, drones, and satellites into agronomic reports, providing actionable insights for farmers. This helps in making data-driven decisions, optimizing input applications, reducing waste, and increasing production potential.

BemAgro's solutions are highly scalable and agnostic, processing data from agricultural machines, drones, and satellites in a centralized platform. This integration optimizes the entire agricultural cycle from planting to harvesting. It improves operational efficiency, maximizes productive area use, and reduces diesel consumption and input applications such as herbicides, growth regulators, urea, and defoliants.

Can you explain how BemAgro's AI technology converts aerial field images into agronomic mapping reports and what types of insights these reports typically provide?

BemAgro's platform processes images using AI to detect weeds and generate variable-rate application maps for growth regulators, urea, defoliants/desiccants, and identify planting failures. It also provides maps for harvest line restoration, parallelism, and plant counting. These georeferenced maps are sent directly to major agricultural machinery brands, allowing clients to apply inputs only where needed and standardize operations for maximum efficiency in soil preparation, planting, spraying, and harvesting.

How does your weed mapping technology help reduce herbicide use, and what impact does this have on cost savings and environmental sustainability?

BemAgro's weed mapping technology allows for precise herbicide application, reducing its use by an average of 80% by targeting only infested areas. This decreases input costs, saves water, diesel, and operational time, and significantly reduces environmental impact by adopting more sustainable practices.

As AI technology rapidly evolves, what new features or capabilities are you looking to add to your mapping solutions in the near future?

AI assists with data scaling and processing, but the future challenge will be interpreting, visualizing, and consolidating information in an organized manner. BemAgro aims to enhance predictive capabilities rather than just diagnostic ones, focusing on diverse crops like soybeans, corn, cotton, sugarcane, and eucalyptus, with a goal of improving decision-making speed and accuracy.

How has your partnership with CNH Industrial evolved over the past five years, and what benefits has this collaboration brought to both companies?

Since 2018, BemAgro has developed a strategic partnership with CNH, initially focusing on Brazil with proof-of-concept trials for sugarcane. As technology potential became evident, CNH began commercially offering BemAgro's solutions in Brazil. BemAgro then adapted solutions for the Cerrado region, expanding to crops like soybeans, corn, and cotton. Following success in Brazil, operations expanded to Asia in early 2023, with a focus on Thailand and Indonesia for sugarcane. Our solutions now cover around 60,000 hectares in Asia, with plans to expand to 150,000 hectares by 2025. New regions, including Latin America, are being explored, with future expansions into Europe and the U.S. BemAgro's solutions are integrated with CNH equipment, providing a comprehensive solution for field challenges.

Looking ahead, which emerging AI technologies or applications do you believe will have the greatest impact on Brazilian agriculture in the next 5 to 10 years?

In the next 5 to 10 years, Brazilian agriculture will benefit significantly from emerging AI applications such as predictive analytics, drones, robots, and real-time sensors. These technologies are expected to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve the sustainability of agricultural practices.

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This story was initially published in the 2024 Latin America Focus. Download the magazine to read more stories.

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