Project led by CPQD completes one year of operation with the formal adhesion of 63 small rural producers
Credit: CPQD website
High-quality internet connectivity and access, increased revenue, reduced costs and the engagement of 63 rural producers who formally joined the initiative. These are some of the results achieved by the SemeAr Project – which aims to develop a digital innovation platform for agribusiness, with solutions aimed at the real demands of small producers and family farmers – in the Agro Technological District (DAT) of São Miguel Arcanjo, in the interior of São Paulo, which completes one year of operation in early July.
DAT works as a “digital super farm”, promoting the interaction of rural producers in projects implemented within the SemeAr initiative. Over the past 12 months, CPQD has led the project, implementation and operation of the DAT in São Miguel Arcanjo, a municipality in the Sorocaba region with around 330 small-scale farmers who are basically dedicated to the production of grapes, zucchini and other fruit and vegetables. In this initiative, it had the support of the Fund for the Technological Development of Telecommunications (FUNTTEL) and Finep and the partnership of 14 companies and institutions that are part of the SemeAr ecosystem in the state of São Paulo - among them, Embrapa, the Technological Park of Sorocaba, the Institute of Agricultural Economy (IEA), the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC), Sebrae and SENAR/FAESP.
“In one year of operation, we implemented a rural connectivity infrastructure with national technology, which provides internet access and enables access to digital agriculture content, training, applications and services, such as startup services, connected tractor, climate prediction, among others”, says Fabricio Lira Figueiredo, manager of business development in Intelligent Agribusiness at CPQD. Implemented by the local provider SMANET, one of the partners in the project, this infrastructure combines several wireless connectivity technologies: Telebras' SGDC broadband satellite, Trópico's private 4G LTE/250 MHz network, for communication with tractors and agricultural machinery, LoRa network for the sensors installed in the field and point-to-point radio, to provide access to the Wi-Fi network and connection with the service provider.
“At the same time, we surveyed the demands of rural producers who formalized their adherence to the DAT, selected startups with solutions to meet these demands and provided training in digital technologies for small producers”, says the CPQD manager. The training took place through face-to-face training carried out by partners SEBRAE and SENAR-SP (National Rural Learning Service), FAESP's educational arm.
An important result of SemeAr was the survey of the most relevant “pains” of small producers in São Miguel Arcanjo to boost their business. With the application of the methodology developed in the project, the demands for disintermediation of the commercialization chains, optimization of agronomic management, property management, traceability and agile rural credit were mapped. To meet these demands, prospecting was carried out in the national ecosystem of startups specialized in agribusiness and partnerships were signed with two of them: Muda Meu Mundo and Maneje Bem. The first offers a digital market platform designed to connect small producers and family farmers with retail, in order to reduce intermediaries in the chain, guarantee the definition of prices by the producer and expand its sales channels. Maneje Bem offers digital technical assistance through an application and web platform that connects a network of agronomists and provides access to content on soil management, pest management, varieties and microclimate.
In addition, CPQD contributed to the project platforms and technological solutions developed in its laboratories, to complement and facilitate the integration of the infrastructure of smart farm services available in the DAT. Among them, the C2n solution stands out, the core of a 4G/5G convergent network used in the private connectivity network installed in this Agro-Technological District to collect data from tractors. Other technological assets integrated by CPQD are the open platform dojot, which allows the integration of data from Internet of Things (IoT) applications, and the Artificial Intelligence platform, which enables the acceleration of the development of AI applications – including in partnership with startups – designed to meet the demands of DAT producers.
Currently, 63 rural producers have already formalized their adhesion to the SemeAr initiative in São Miguel Arcanjo – 43 of them are already connected to the internet, 26 access the digital market service, 25 use digital technical assistance and 27 have undergone face-to-face training. A survey carried out among them indicated that access to information in general – prices, market, management techniques and agricultural news in general – and communication with buyers, sellers, agronomists and even family members were important benefits that the SemeAr DAT brought to rural producers in São Miguel Arcanjo.
Connectivity played a relevant role in this result. Prior to the implementation of the DAT, field measurements showed that 63% in the serviced area did not have coverage of the communication networks of the public mobile telephony operators. Research carried out recently with DAT producers indicated that, in their perception, the quality of the internet was considered just regular, having improved more than twice with the connectivity infrastructure of the SemeAr Project – today it is considered excellent (69.6% of the responses) or good (30.4%). Due to the solutions and services provided by the DAT, farmers saw an increase of 28% in their revenues and a reduction of 24% in production costs. In the case of Maneje Bem's digital technical assistance solution, for example, 57% of producers have already noticed an improvement in the quality of their products, reflected in increased sales, in less than 6 months of using the application.
In the next phase, SemeAr's objective is to promote the evolution of the DAT, expanding operations in the region – and, in partnership with the Center for the Development of Digital Agriculture (CCD/AD), contribute to the implementation of new DATs in other locations in the country.
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