Using large data to help farmers optimize farm allocation, San Francisco start-up company Ceres Imaging wants to create "data-as-service" 2C services

Big data can really do a lot of things, even involving some seemingly rock-solid traditional areas like agriculture. Agriculture has its own particularity, product production has fixed periodic limit, and in the process of output will have a variety of factors interference, large to weather hydrology, small to warehousing logistics. However, agriculture is indeed the settle of all human beings, and when the tide of the internet has swept over the world, agriculture is also in need of change.

Ceres Imaging, a San Francisco start-up that is trying to optimize the farm, is currently publicly financing and has recently won 900,000 of billions of dollars in investment, including Steve Blank, a prominent investor and capital of China. The company is trying to use vast amounts of data to help farmers optimize their water and nutrition supplies, claiming to build "data-driven" farms.

Currently, Ceres imaging is collecting data on 4 farms in California, between 2000 and 20,000 acres, and has established data models, and has begun to use the data collected to help farmers in California. In the future, Ceres imaging plans to sell the collected data to gain revenue by doing a "data-as-service" 2C service company.

Ceres imaging the specific approach is to integrate sensors, cameras and other components into a small, modular box that can be conveniently combined with drones and small aircraft. In turn, partnerships with companies that provide aerial seeding and pesticide spraying for farms to collect real-time data on large farms, together with image sensors in fixed areas, gather large amounts of farm data. The data are then processed and uploaded to the cloud, which makes it easy to learn more about farm land and crops. Farmers can easily use any devices connected to the Internet to view this information, so as to make the appropriate decision.

The same as Ceres imaging efforts in the field of agriculture and solum. Compared with foreign countries for large data applications, domestic traditional areas, we do not see very good similar examples. But it may also explain that there is a broader market and more opportunities in China than abroad.