Local agriculture tech firm Smart Yields and the Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center are one of five teams to win an innovation grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The team proposed a digital platform called CoffeeMD. It will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to allow coffee farmers to quickly identify issues with their plants, such as pests and diseases.
Researchers say the platform will bypass the need for USDA agents to travel to farms.
"The hope is to minimize the amount of human resources, the individual non-scalable capital, that is a person to go and visit farms. I mean, on the entire Big Island, I think the USDA has five of these extension agents," said Ryan Ozawa, former CEO of Smart Yields.
Ozawa said that Hawaiʻi Island currently has five extension agents tasked with visiting farms. The app hopes to replicate the process so that farmers have access to diagnose problems anywhere in the field.
Users will be able to use the app for free from any mobile device, which "allows for everybody to maximize their outputs their crops, minimize their waste, and do so using technology," Ozawa said.
If CoffeeMD is successful, Ozawa said it will be integrated into another Smart Yields app called Best Beans.
“Coffee is the second most valuable agricultural commodity in Hawaiʻi, but with more than 1,000 coffee farms statewide and only one assigned extension agent, our ability to help farmers on-site is limited,” said ARS Research Biologist Melissa Johnson, who will serve as the project’s principal investigator.
Johnson, who is also a part of the ARS Daniel K. Inouye U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, said that farmers will be able to save time with the technology.
“An urgent need exists for growers to be able to rapidly identify issues in their fields without needing to resort to an agent or having to search through lengthy documents online,” Johnson said.
Ozawa stepped down as Smart Yields CEO earlier this month. Former Smart Yields CEO Vincent Kimura will return to lead the company.
