MyCrop Technologies, honoured as a Technology Pioneer 2018 by World Economic Forum (WEF) last week, plans to reach out to five million small and marginal farmers across the world by 2022 to bring about a positive change in their life, increase their incomes and encourage them to contribute more to global economy.

The Ahmedabad-based early-stage start-up, MyCrop, a data-driven recommendation platform aiming to enhance the standard of living of farmers, was among the 61 most-promising Technology Pioneers by WEF on June 21.

“We are, essentially, an interface between the humble farmer and the rest of the world,” Deepak Pareek, CEO and Founder, told BusinessLine . Pareek, a technocrat-turned-banker-turned entrepreneur, will visit Tianjin, China, to attend the annual meeting of ‘New Champions of 2018’ in September, at what is also known as ‘Summer Davos.’ He will also attend the WEF’s annual meeting at Davos, Switzerland in January, 2019.

Empowering farmers

Founded in December 2016, MyCrop Technologies is an AI and Machine-Learning (ML)-based platform that provides insights, a “Farm Plan” on what to grow, when and how. In the last 18 months, it has enlisted in its pilot projects nearly 4,500 small and marginal farmers in Gujarat, and in Northern Sumatra, Indonesia. By 2019 it will enlist 10,000 farmers including those in Myanmar and The Philippines. The company is also in talks with the officials in Vietnam.

MyCrop empowers farmers through Farmer Mitra (a village level entrepreneur, VLE), equipped with latest data, delivering them information, expertise, and resources to increase their productivity and profitability, thereby improving their incomes and standard of living.

Data-driven insights

It also provides real-time data-driven insights to agriculture ecosystem players like government bodies, finance and insurance companies, extension service providers, NGOs, commodity buyers and value chain players, and agriculture input companies. “Our business model is simple: based on the farmer’s requirements, we recommend the products and their alternatives they could use. In return, we get commission from the manufacturers concerned.”