Soil carbon content is a key indicator of soil fertility and good farming practices. It is also an indicator of the amount of carbon storing capacity of soils. With Big-Ag moving towards regenerative agriculture, the current practice of collecting and analysing soil samples is not a viable solution. This is not just cost- and labour-intensive, but also slow and non-scalable. Soil carbon needs to be measured and tracked at scale and at all times. SmartCloudFarming is using a combination of remote-sensing and advanced AI to determine and track soil carbon remotely, fast, and at scale.

Tech: Remote sensing (satellites, planes, drones); Cloud (data storage and computing, Big data); Artificial Intelligence (Machine / deep learning); Software solutions (programs and packages)

We are using advanced neural networks and remote sensing data to determine the content of soil carbon on vast tracts of land remotely. This is possible by using a combination of different soil data to train the algorithms that then determine soil carbon content and track changes in soil carbon over time. Currently, we have an average error of < 3% for soils that we have analysed with the best best 0.2%. The technology is currently being trialed in pilot projects (a service), with a customer-facing product in planning. Ultimately, the customer will be able to select the land himself and see the carbon content directly.

We cannot provide any links to our service as yet, as this has not been made public and operated internally by our development team. However, we are attaching some pictures from the assesment we did fr 19 fields in USA last year in summer.

https://www.google.com/?client=safari

• Portugal
• Spain

• Remote and rural communities

Technically, we can even monitor small tracts of land - as long as this is larger than the resolution of the satellite data that we use. However, at present we are not planning to target smallholder farmers directly, but rather through cooperatives as this is economical for us. Alternatively, they will be able to avail the service directly.

What you cannot measure, you cannot change. This is also true for soil carbon content. Our solution makes it possible to track changes to soil carbon content and relate it to farming practices. It will also enable farmers to prove their carbon farming efficacy and earn money through carbon credits.

20. E-environment Governments, in cooperation with other stakeholders are encouraged to use and promote ICTs as an instrument for environmental protection and the sustainable use of natural resources. Government, civil society and the private sector are encouraged to initiate actions and implement projects and programmes for sustainable production and consumption and the environmentally safe disposal and recycling of discarded hardware and components used in ICTs. Establish monitoring systems, using ICTs, to forecast and monitor the impact of natural and man-made disasters, particularly in developing countries, LDCs and small economies. 21. E-agriculture Ensure the systematic dissemination of information using ICTs on agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, forestry and food, in order to provide ready access to comprehensive, up-to-date and detailed knowledge and information, particularly in rural areas. Public-private partnerships should seek to maximize the use of ICTs as an instrument to improve production (quantity and quality).