DESPITE contributing 12% of the national gross development product (GDP) and providing employment for 16% of the population, the agriculture sector has been relatively slow in the adoption rate of modern technology.
Most of this stems from the perception that modern options such as artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) solutions are expensive and are not viable for the agriculture industry.
In line with Malaysia’s continued efforts to expand its digital footprint, home-grown agritech platform SM4RT TANI is combining traditional farming with state-of-the-art internet of things (IoT) and cloud-based solutions to provide Malaysian farmers with robust digital tools that aim to revolutionise the agriculture industry.
The SM4RT TANI platform enables farmers to obtain accurate information and readings about their crops seamlessly and in real-time, thereby maximising efficiency and yield.
“More often than not, these farmers are working with nothing but hazy assumptions and knowledge passed down from prior generations,” SM4RT TANI’s founder Hafeiz Hassan whose grandfather was a farmer pointed out.
“This not only causes ambiguity in their day-to-day operations, but also creates potentially unnecessary wastage in terms of energy, resources, and time. I wanted to change that with SM4RT TANI.”
By utilising Sigfox’s Zero-G Network supplied by Malaysia’s first licensed IoT provider, Xperanti IoT, and other IoT connectivity solutions, the system ensures that farmers have access to real-time pH and weather monitoring, pest control, crop monitoring, and more.
Additionally, by utilising state-of-the-art sensors which are connected to a central mainframe, the crops are monitored via a dashboard which is user-friendly and convenient, thus allowing farmers to access alerts, corrections, and reports generated in real-time.
Beyond that, SM4RT TANI is highly customisable and is designed to meet the unique needs of each user, showing specially curated information that is relevant only to their specific use case and crop type.
Meanwhile, the platform also works hand-in-hand with sister company, Urus Tani – a home-grown digital farm management system under the parent umbrella Singularity Aerotech Asia (SAT).
While data from SMART Tani sensors provide crucial environmental data of the farm, Urus Tani helps farmers capture all operational data including inventory, human capital and planning management.
Designed with an intuitive user interface and compliance to agricultural management standards such as MyGAP, the platform complements SM4RT TANI to form a complete, end-to-end smart farming system for the farmers.
“We are proud to be working so closely with farming communities all around Malaysia and we are glad to report that our robust system has been able to help farmers make data-driven decisions that have ultimately resulted in sustainable growth and greater results,” Hafeiz who is also the CEO of SAT remarked.
Currently, SM4RT TANI has onboarded 10 farms across five states in Malaysia – Johor, Kelantan, Selangor, Kedah, and Negeri Sembilan.
“Through our efforts, farmers have witnessed an increase of up to 25% in yield whilst being able to strategically reduce the use of valuable resources and manpower,” Hafeiz shared.
“We’re keen to keep this momentum going as we continue to spearhead the agritech industry.”
Moving forward, SM4RT TANI is looking to include even more indispensable features to further improve the working conditions of farmers such as broiler farm monitoring, greenhouse monitoring, and virtual marketplace to push the Malaysian agriculture industry to even greater heights. – Aug 17, 2021
