SWC x Wildfire 2024 Spotlight: Farmtri

Farmtri is a tech company that leverages technology to benefit the Food Value Chain including Agriculture and the Food Business Sector. By leveraging data and advanced technology to optimize sustainability and precision in Agriculture and a direct access to market opportunity. Thus, empowering farmer operations to improve profitability. For food businesses, the platform streamlines ERP Solutions for inventory management, sales and market pricing predictions, and supply automation for business growth, while contributing to social impact. Ultimately, Farmtri aims to create a more efficient and sustainable food system by recommending sustainable solutions through advanced technology that increases crop yields, reduces waste, and an access to market opportunity. With that, why don’t you join me in learning more about Farmtri with its CEO and Co-Founder, Marini Fernandez.

Could you tell us more about yourself and how your career inspired you to create Farmtri? 

I actually started out as a traditional business owner. I had a marketing agency. It was only this year, around March, that I reconnected with Aris, my co-founder. Aris offered me a position to be a board director at his company, which was called Farmware during that time. I initially declined and offered instead to be a consultant since I was preoccupied with my own business. However, he did share with me the vision of his company: of how he was not only going to help the farmers, but the entire Agriculture sector as a whole. This included solving climate issues and food security. It had a lot of opportunities to grow. That was Aris’s mission. This led me to agree to his initial offer. His passion inspired me to be involved in his mission. 

My first proposal was to change the name to Farmtri since Farmware didn’t sound right to me personally. The letters ‘tri’ now stand for people, purpose, and planet. We've been doing trial and error for the past few months trying to understand our positioning in the market. It  finally hit that we want to innovate both the agriculture and the food value chain sector, not just to help farmers increase their yields to their soil, but also to secure food for the next generation.

According to experts we only have 26 years for 90% of the earth's soil to be degraded. We're now at 33%. That is alarming. Because of soil degradation, food prices will increase and a lot more people will be starving. And so we're on a mission to cut that down. Right now, our technology can cut soil degradation down by 50%. But it's still not enough, we know we have a long way to go.

What is Farmtri and what problems are you trying to solve? 

Soil degradation is a problem that is caused by soil erosion, which also is caused by chemical inputs, fertilizers, and climate change. But farmers put fertilizer to increase their yields when they're monocropping. The reason why they do that is because these middlemen give it to them so they can increase the yield and earn more. The farmers need to do this since they don’t have a choice. They grow whatever they think is trending in the market, or whatever the wholesaler wants them to produce. Oftentimes, that data is inaccurate which results in an overproduction of goods that may be thrown by the side of the road. These prices affect the climate. And so it boils down to how much they are earning every single day. And that is under $1 a day of income.

That is the main problem we want to solve with Farmtri. We want to turn their $1 a day of income into $35 a day by increasing their crop yields through technology. We want to increase their yields using sustainable solutions and slow down soil degradation. This helps farmers know what to produce, how to produce and harvest sustainably, and the demand in the market. Our technology can do that. We work a lot with them through our farm development plan, which we've been doing for the past 10 years as a social enterprise before. With the tech, it also tells them what's the next crop to produce based on their soil health. And this at the same time slows down soil degradation and all the other factors. 

Can you explain the core technology behind Farmtri's platform and how it benefits farmers?

We created an algorithm that collects data sets and uses machine learning to give sustainable farming recommendations for farmers. We have IoT sensors placed on the ground to gather data on the soil, but our software can work with other IoT sensors. Thus, farmers know exactly what to produce, how to produce and harvest it sustainably, and where to sell it and at what price in the market.

With this, farmers get to increase their yield 100 times more, while preventing any losses and wastes on food quality or overproduction and knowing exactly what the market needs and when--turning their $1 to $35 a day. 

Our tech also integrates precision agriculture to cut down costs of inputs, fertilizers, and soil rehabilitation. 

How has Farmtri impacted the lives of farmers and the agricultural industry in Southeast Asia? Can you give some examples? 

One of our many success stories is about a farmer who grew cassava. At that time, prices were plummeting. She had a wholesaler who told her to harvest now since they needed to sell it immediately due to the price drop. The wholesaler bought everything at a low price. And what my co-founder did was that he used our software to identify the right amount of water the cassava needed to have good quality so that they could sell it on the market. Because of this, Aris bought the cassava back from the wholesaler at the price that the guy wanted to sell it for. We waited for exactly when to harvest, and when we harvested it, it was the right amount of water that the cassava needed to have the best quality. And so we processed it, and then we sold it. Happy to say that that farmer was able to build her own house and made her family’s life better. She retired after that. 

What are the future plans for Farmtri, including product development and market expansion?

I did mention that we're able to slow down soil degradation already, but that's just the beginning. Right now, we're working on a lot of other developments that will immediately disrupt the agriculture sector. It's going to help farmers exponentially. In terms of market expansion, we are upstream and downstream. We can work with businesses who are downstream, meaning that they have access to the market. We can also work with companies who already are in the IoT side for agriculture. Farmtri is very unique in that aspect. Also, we have already deployed our sensors to places like India, Australia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. We've been talking to a lot of other people from other regions, specifically in Central Asia, Europe, and South America. I believe that Farmtri’s market will definitely expand to these areas. We can definitely improve this entire industry, even just 10% of the market. We’re working on that tirelessly.

Our goal is to hit almost 600 million farmers in the world. We need a lot of help. That's why we need a lot of partners, people who might introduce us to people who are already embedded in those countries. We need all the help we can get to achieve our mission and our goal. 

How was your experience with IGNITE? How does it feel to be part of the top 3 startups of Startup World Cup x Wildfire 2024 Pitch Competition

First of all, I'd like to thank the team from IGNITE and Techshake teams. Being part of the top three of IGNITE x Startup World Cup helped us share our mission to the audience there. There were a lot of people who were interested in helping us with our mission. I'm really grateful for that. I believe even being part of the top three is a bonus for me. The experience was wonderful. I was able to gain a lot of insights. And being part of the top three, they also flew us to Jeju. I was extremely grateful because of the experience, the network, the new found connections that we were given, and the opportunity to look at prospects in other markets, not just in the Philippines.

Marini Fernandez is the Co-Founder and CEO of Farmtri. She plays a pivotal role in driving the company's mission to revolutionize the agricultural industry. She leads the team in developing and implementing innovative technology solutions that empower farmers and enhance food security. Fernandez's strategic vision and leadership have been instrumental in Farmtri's growth and success. As witnessed, Marini is passionate about bettering the lives of farmers in the country and regionally. 

Visit www.techshake.asia if you would like to know and connect more with Farmtri.