When it comes to agriculture in Serbia, especially in those places where its fate is decided, stereotypes about the Serbian peasant are still so strong that even the most ordinary consumers of modern means of communication imagine farmers in the central part of the country as martyrs under the nail and sandals with spikes on their feet, while they see the “northern man” or the Vojvodina peasant as a stocky melachonic dressed in white, wide “underpants” with an all-fat hat on his head and a blade of wheat straw in his mouth.
True, a Serbian farmer cannot cope with his colleagues from the Netherlands or Denmark, although he is not so far behind in terms of yields, but those who are seriously dedicated to agriculture have long been driving tractors and combines with GPS navigation, using digital applications and even drones in tracking production, that is, they largely use the benefits of artificial intelligence in an attempt to not only survive, but also improve their production.
That artificial intelligence is recognized as an indispensable part of Serbian agriculture is evidenced not only by the recently opened demonstration digital farm of the Novi Sad Institute “Biosens”, in which the state of Serbia and the EU invested 28 million euros, but also numerous domestic IT startups. One of such creations of Serbian mind comes from Sombor, from the author team “ABS digital platform”, which gathered Aleksandar Marotic, known to the general public as a key man in bringing the daughter company of the giant “Ferrero” to our country, more precisely in Sombor nearby Aleksa Santic, which led to real explosions of new hazelnut plantations in Serbia.
– Our digital platform essentially deals with the process of optimizing investment in agricultural production with an assessment of the financial efficiency of the overall investment cycle – is the definition of a digital platform whose solution, according to Aleksandar Marotic, is breaking into the East African market, ie Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia – The “ABS” platform stands out in relation to the existing solutions by being deprived of a human, often subjective, factor in recommending the best solution in the investment cycle, but also assessing the efficiency of the intended investment, since the conclusion is an automated process, ie a set of algorithms .
Simply put, the hitherto known digital tools intended for agricultural production in our market were primarily aimed at improving production in technological terms, but “ABS digital platform”, in addition as an integral part, contains algorithms that optimize investment, whether on daily, yearly or perennial. The users of this platform can be divided into two parts, ie on the one hand they are agricultural producers, while on the other hand they are external, outsourced associates, in the form of financial institutions, scientific institutes, funds, secretariats, agencies, seed producers, chemical protection means, mechanization.
– So, by filling out the universal form, the farmer expresses his investment goal, whether it is a matter of regular establishment of production, purchase of machinery, construction of a storage facility…to which autosourcers, within their regular business, deliver possible solutions offered to interested farmers. The algorithms will, completely impartially, without favoring any of the, so to speak, bidders, select the most efficient solution for the farmer and submit a complete report, which is additionally formed to contain all the parameters necessary when applying for production subsidies and for any additional funds with financial institutions – says Marotic, according to whom the optimization of production in this way solves the problem of knowing exactly how much it cost for each phase of the investment, and whether it is profitable, which has been an “impossible mission” so far in a real forest of numerous costs required by any investment.
An example is the desire of farmers to buy a new tractor. After filling in the questionnaire, depending on the provided data on the size of the property, land quality, type of production, indebtedness, age and type of existing mechanization, as well as a number of other known parameters, solutions and offers from producers and importers, but also banks, insurers, agro institutes will arrive and a number of other experts, who will be “sifted” by algorithms and offer the most optimal, most efficient and most cost-effective solution for the peasant. Of course, no one expects that the farmer will in any case “blindly” and completely rely on artificial intelligence, so based on his experience, and why not inclinations, change the parameters from the submitted solution.
– If changes are made, the algorithms warn, “fire the alarm” and also calculate the consequences for the efficiency of the overall investment cycle. For example, if it is an investment of establishing production in arable farming, a certain seed will be recommended to the farmer, a certain producer with a precisely predicted sowing norm. If, for some of its reasons, it changes only the sowing norm, the platform automatically anticipates the effects of that move and warns farmers that there may be real consequences for efficiency, ie profitability of that change in investment or production – claims Marotic, Dnevnik reports.
