Lagom Ag Helps Smallholder Farmers Leverage Data

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Lagom Ag Helps Smallholder Farmers Leverage Data

By Evin Ellis, AGDATA

AgGateway welcomes Lagom Ag, a market strategy and business development group based in Portland, Oregon. Lagom is a Swedish word that means “just enough.” It fits the company’s philosophy of helping farmers use just enough water, just enough fertilizers, and just enough energy to be profitable, while ensuring the sustainability of limited resources.

The Lagom Ag Initiative was founded to help smallholder farmers, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, take advantage of digital agriculture. Its focus is on removing barriers for farmers so that they can effectively access and use weather, field and market data. This includes data for planning, operations and reporting/traceability.

There are foundational pieces in place in developed countries that many in those nations take for granted, such as web access and national weather programs, that are missing or only partially in place in developing countries. Growers often do not have access to data, and when they do, the use of that data by others is nowhere near as transparent as in the United States. Opportunity-wise, companies, universities and farm cooperatives are inventing new ways to share data with sensor networks, SMS and other inexpensive applications.

“At Lagom AG we feel data standards are absolutely critical if smallholder farmers are going to realize the benefits of digital agriculture. They need to access and use data from many, many different sources. Without standards, it's just a Tower of Babel out there,” said Dan Berne, Founder and CEO. “I joined AgGateway because it is a leader in helping growers use standards to their benefit. What I appreciate about AgGateway is companies come together to see where they can create higher value for the end users, while increasing market opportunities. I've met a lot of AgGateway colleagues who are just terrific to work with and for whom I have a tremendous respect.”

Lagom AG currently is a member of the Precision Ag Council; Berne serves as project manager for the Precision Ag Irrigation Language (PAIL) standard and the traceability initiatives.