Artificial intelligence and machine learning enable FarmByte to make data-driven decisions, help farmers increase crop yields

JOHOR BAHRU, 17 JULY 2024: Johor Corporation’s (JCorp) digital-first agrofood company, FarmByte Sdn Bhd, is harnessing advanced cloud, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions from Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, to revolutionise the agrofood sector in Malaysia and uplift the livelihoods of farmers. 

By building on AWS Cloud, FarmByte aims to further augment its digital infrastructure and data-driven approach to farming by offering farmers comprehensive crop monitoring solutions and insights, including weather information and fertiliser and pesticide application rates. These insights, provided through the innovative FarmByte app, allow farmers to plan and optimise their resources better for improved yield outcomes.

FarmByte is leveraging AWS’s cloud infrastructure for scalable and reliable hosting of data sources and applications, AWS Data Exchange for secure data sharing with partners, and Amazon S3 and AWS Glue Data Catalog for secure storage and management of a scalable data lake. By building and deploying a data lake on AWS, FarmByte can now conduct comprehensive analyses and generate actionable insights for Crop Pricing Analytics, Demand Forecasting, and Supply Chain scheduling. Through AWS’s pioneering data aggregation and management services, FarmByte is also able to aggregate data from various sources within its ecosystem and externally to provide key insights to the farming community. 

To enhance its demand forecasts, FarmByte is also leveraging Amazon Forecast’s ML capabilities to help farmers better estimate supply chain lead times, which will improve delivery schedules and optimise crop prices for efficient cost management. FarmByte is also employing vision analytics to grade crops such as pineapples using AI/ML capabilities running on Amazon SageMaker. 

In line with its advanced and industry-first thinking, FarmByte is exploring the development of an application that uses machine learning to provide FarmByte’s network of farmers with insights into optimal pricing strategies and demand forecasting. By analyzing market trends, supply and demand fluctuations, and historical pricing data, the application aims to help farmers make informed decisions on what crops to plant and when, as well as how to price their produce to maximize profitability and reduce risks associated with price volatility. 

FarmByte’s Head of Digital, Mohd Fakhri Mohd Noor, said, “Our vision at FarmByte is to revolutionise Malaysia’s agrofood sector and expand further into the Internet of Things (IoT) to enhance the nation’s food security and empower farmers with knowledge, tools, and near real-time insights to produce higher quality and value crops to uplift their livelihoods. By utilising AWS’s world-class solutions, FarmByte can enhance our data aggregation, AI and ML capabilities to provide even more advanced predictive analytics and personalised insights to our farmers through our app, as well as innovative solutions that can transform farming practices to ensure a stronger, more sustainable agrofood value chain. With this, we are proud to be among the first in the industry in Malaysia to employ a digital-first approach to provide the farmers we onboard through our FarmByte app with comprehensive insights on crop demand, supply trends, and even future crop prices.” 

“Agriculture is a data rich industry with a wealth of information that can provide actionable insights for optimizing operations throughout the food system. Having a system that can respond in real-time to meet changing demands and conditions along the entire agriculture supply chain is critical,” said Azhar Abdullah, Malaysia and Brunei Sales Leader, AWS. “As the agriculture industry adapts to the growing demand for innovation, it is inspiring to see how FarmByte’s digital transformation is elevating the agricultural sector by delivering transformative data-driven solutions that empower farmers to making informed decisions that optimize crop conditions and increase yields while making FarmBytes operations more efficient.” 

In addition to providing farmers with comprehensive farming and pricing insights, the FarmByte app digitalises and accelerates the finance payment process for farmers, and allows them to go through the entire process of off-taking – from scheduling to communications with retailers and wholesalers – digitally.

Complementing the FarmByte app is a FarmByte B2B online marketplace that showcases our farmers’ product catalog and allows buyers to see and buy the available product range. This B2B marketplace will be fully launched by the third quarter of this year.

About FarmByte Sdn Bhd 

FarmByte is pioneering a new innovative era in Malaysia’s agrofood industry. A JCorp company, FarmByte leverages technology to provide transparent end-to-end solutions to players in its agrofood ecosystem – the FarmByte Food Hub – to enhance national food security, production efficiency and product quality.

Driven by a commitment to enhance food production and uplift communities, the company works together with trusted partners throughout the value chain – from farmers and processors to distributors and retailers – to create greater business and economic opportunities for the entire farm-to-fork ecosystem.