AI, THE BIRDS AND THE BEES
HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CAN HELP REVIVE AGRICULTURE
It’s often said that AI innovation success starts with identifying a problem and then applying a solution. Sometimes the problems are epic in scale; other times, they’re rooted in personal experience and a desire to help friends.
Marc- André Roberge’s inspiration came from being a bee-keeper (as a hobby). A product and industrial designer by profession, Roberge began working with honeybees in 2014, producing honey for non-profit organizations.
The struggle, he says, was understanding what was going on in the hive. That led to the founding of Nectar, a Montreal- based startup with an AI solution for monitoring the health of honeybee hives.
For Roberge, this project isn’t just about AI for AI’s sake. “I’ve always had strong environmental values ( and) wanted to do something about it. With all the money being poured i nto protecting crops, pollination and honey production have been forgotten. Being able to help is a tremendous opportunity.”
Beekeepers lose between 35 to 45 per cent of bees yearly, he says, and have to replace them to meet the demand for honey and pollination. “The mortality rate is even higher for hobbyist (beekeepers).”
He adds that Agriculture Canada data indicates there are about 10,000 beekeepers in Canada, with a total of 750,000 hives. Commercial honey production is a $ 250 million annual industry, in addition to the revenue beekeepers get from pollination services to farmers to improve crop efficiency and production. While not documented, Roberge speculates that revenue is higher.
The Nectar s olution uses sensor- based devices that collect data from hives, including temperature, sound frequencies, weight and location. It can then be crossreferenced and analyzed to build a picture of each hive’s health and to develop recommendations.
Roberge acknowledges there are a few companies trying to do something similar. “However, we’re one of the only ones using AI for better data analysis,” he claims. “Because of that, we’re different in terms of the way we analyze data and the insight we provide.”
Nectar has garnered i nterest from the AI and startup communities. Element AI provided mentoring support, and the team is now well entrenched in the Centech accelerator program. Nectar also won a year of free office facilities through DCMTL in Montreal, where there’s a green roof with hives so they can test the products’ latest versions. The team is running pilot projects with five farms and working on an initial round of funding to support product development and marketing for a 2018 launch.
Casper Kaastra, crop production general manager for La Coop fédérée in Montreal, says there is a growing market for AI- related solutions that support the agriculture industry. “Agriculture is getting into things like drones, satellite imagery for measuring crops and livestock or targeting pests.”
Tracking bees is an ideal example, he says. “We would be really excited about anything that helps identify the general health of bees. What it really does is help ensure commercial agricultural practices can coexist as part of responsible environmental management.”
For Lockbird’s co- founder Mathieu Hamel, the inspiration for his sensor- based bird deterrent came when visiting his friend’s vineyard. “When I went to visit, I thought of beautiful green flour- ishing vineyards that we see on TV or the internet. I was shocked to see a big huge field of white nets for keeping the birds away.”
Not only are the nets unsightly, they are expensive and have to be applied by hand. As an engineer, Hamel was asked if he could come up with a better idea to keep the birds away, but one that wouldn’t harm them.
The Lockbird system uses a laser on a robotic arm that can detect the position of birds and, when they are in range, shoot beams towards the ground to deter them before they do damage. “It’s clean, silent and completely harmless to humans and birds,” he says.
As it turns out, Hamel’s idea can also help solve urban issues, such as landfill sites. These typically use a propane cannon that emits a loud boom to drive birds away. “Airports also have big issue with bird strikes.”
As Lockbird evolves, it will be able to give precise data on birds “in a way we’ve never seen,” Hamel says. This bodes well for even more industries, such as fish farms and berry producers.
Kaastra stresses that innovations aren’t always about the big things. “The connectivity around some technologies and the myriad data collected offers a lot of tremendous opportunities for startups to help the agricultural industry.”