November 14, 2018, Cape Town, South Africa - On Wednesday, November 14, precision agriculture company Aerobotics announced that it reached the 10 million milestone of processed trees and vines, one million of which were processed in the last five days, in Aerobotics’ proprietary software. The announcement was officially made by Aerobotics’ CFO and Head of Growth Tim Willis at the AfricaCom event at the Cape Town International Convention Center.

Willis made the announcement during his presentation about harnessing the opportunity given to agriculture by leveraging artificial intelligence. Willis explained that Aerobotics’ proprietary artificial intelligence software gets stronger and more efficient the more data that is processed through the software.

“Today, we are proud to announce that we have processed 10 million trees in Aerobotics’ software, making our artificial intelligence and solutions stronger and more efficient,” said Willis. “This is not just a major milestone for our company because of the massive number of trees we have processed, but also for the agriculture industry as we are better positioned to help tree and vine farmers around the world.”

Aerobotics processes data from drone and satellite imagery through its proprietary artificial intelligence software to discover and analyse problems, pests and diseases affecting individual trees or vines on a farm. In addition to health, the software also measures size, height and canopy volume.

This information, which is displayed through Aerobotics web and mobile apps, helps solve early problems with pests, diseases and stresses. This type of highly accurate data empowers farmers to make better decisions in the field, so they can increase their yield and produce a more balanced crop.

“We are increasingly hearing from our farmers that the information we are able to provide them through our products and solutions are enabling them to make better decisions,” said Willis. “Whether it is the early detection of varying vigor on wine farms, thrips on citrus farms or anything in between, farmers can mitigate damage to their crop earlier than they would have with just the naked eye.”

The level of overall growth in processed trees has increased dramatically over the past six months. Aerobotics’ attributed this rapid growth to putting the farmer at the forefront of its mission. This has enabled Aerobotics to create and improve its products and services in a way that strongly resonates with farmers around the world.

“We have made it a strategic imperative to keep the farmer at the forefront of our mission,” said Aerobotics’ Co-Founder and CEO James Paterson. “Nothing happens in Aerobotics unless it benefits the farmer. We believe this is why we have seen such rapid growth over the last five months and why we expect this growth to continue.”

Aerobotics

Cape Town start-up, Aerobotics, provides farmers around the world with world-leading pest and disease management systems for tree crop protection using drone and satellite data. The company was co-founded by James Paterson (CEO) and Benji Meltzer (CTO) in 2014.  

Farming is a risky business with pests and disease often reducing a farmer’s yields. Aerobotics’ software, Aeroview, empowers tree crop farmers to identify early stage problems in their orchards. Used in conjunction with the Aerobotics’ Aeroview Scout App on their smartphone, farmers are able to locate problem areas on a tree-by-tree basis.

Achieving success for more than 10 million trees to-date, Aerobotics is setting the standard for tree crop analytics globally and innovating the agricultural processes as we know them.