Precision Agriculture

Using SAP HANA and F4F Cloud Integration to Improve Agribusiness

Dr. Lauren McCallum

May, 2015
Global trends impact agribusiness

Shrinking cultivable acreage: Climatic changes force

Loss of over 24 million acres agribusiness to face new
(> 38K square miles) each year challenges

Changing patterns of Increasing regulatory

food consumption in Need to feed over 9 requirements,
developing countries billion people by 2050 drive towards sustainability,
increase demand water management, etc.

Competition for Highly complex Availability Quality and Mobile data

sustainable agriculture of huge amounts compliance collection
products and operations of external data requirements requirements
industry
leadership
Getting better Consolidation of The need to harness Need to track Samples, monitors and
yields from less -- farms into mega- Big Data from the products through sensors, images,
precision farms managed by farming eco-system supply chain for e.g.: soil, moisture,
application of farm managers and and network color of growing plants,
fertilizers and crop corporations weather, water, nutrient
protection management, app of
chemicals crop protection,

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Increasingly complex environment surrounds farmers

Technology &
Solution
Providers
Weather, GPS
& Farm &
field data Seed
Laboratories Producers
exchange Best variety,
Climate, planting
crop & prescriptions
soil data
Each Farm = little factory Integrated data pool
Complex production Real-time information
process availability

Farmer
Farm administration Decentralized data collection
requires more automated and delivery
data exchange
Complex algorithms
Sustainability becomes
Innovative, short time solutions
more and more a need
for local problems
Integrated supply chain is a
requirement
Tailored crop
AgroChemical
inputs (fertilizer, Companies
Traders, Sensor tech & herbicides,
Carriers Supply chain mobile data pesticides)
& & commodity exchange
Industry
management
Partners Machine
Manufacturers

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To grow in this environment, agribusinesses need.

Seamless connection to business Ability to store and analyze

partners, including farmers massive amounts of data fast

Precision
Farming

Farm Data
Track & Trace Field grids, soil samples,
(Supply Chain) moisture analysis, field yield,
application history,

Predictive
Maintenance

Supporting Data
GIS/Maps, seed traits, weather,
market data, equipment info,
Plan & Trade
(Commerce)

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Situation today collaboration

Different collaboration models are currently competing/ emerging

Agro-Chemical company takes lead in creating a collaboration hub (may acquire

1 Service providers etc.) and open hub to their peers

Farm Equipment or Agro-Chemical company takes lead and establishes platform and
2 infrastructure which could be made available to Agro-Chemical or farm equipment
suppliers and other ecosystem stakeholders

3 Multiple ecosystem players drive a platform gaining a competitive advantage over

other vendors

All 3 models create vendor-lock in/dependencies or redundant investments into

different networks without critical mass, lacking neutrality and mutual trust among
stakeholders

2014 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 5

Situation today data collection and analysis

Everyones using a different platform with different protocols/data formats

1 Different databases many not suited for high data volumes or analysis of real-time data

2 Different/proprietary interfaces to external sources of data

Different data formats for data that must be imported and analyzed to provide
3 customized ag services

4 Lack of built in analytic capability leads to redudant effort for each project

All these issues lead agribusiness to focus more effort on common platform issues
instead of focusing on innovative solutions that differentiate them from their
competitors

2014 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 6

Imagine if.

Legacy System

Data
Modeling Data Analysis Custom
Prescription
My Algorithms
Data
Aggregation Company
Cloud
Data Security Data Exchange Data Storage Predictive
Analytics

SAP/F4F Agriculture Hub on SAP HANA Precision Farming Engine on SAP HANA

COLLECT CONNECT PRESCRIBE DELIVER

2014 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 7

Precision Farming Proof of Concept

2014 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 8

Lessons Learned:

A neutral hub (not owned by agribusiness) changes the game

Ability of this hub to integrate data in disparate formats is critical
Huge need for industry-wide data standards
Analysis of high volumes of data required to provide customized services
Real-time data platform required for necessary performance
THANK YOU