Keeping up with Climate Tech vol. 9

Globally, about 570 million smallholder farmers are responsible for 1/3 of global food production. Despite their crucial role, smallholders often struggle to make data-driven decisions, as they lack real-time, localized agricultural intelligence. LetzFarm, a collaboration between Abris Inc. and the Carbon Zero Institute of Trinidad and Tobago, is changing that. 

By harnessing AI and real-time data, LetzFarm provides farmers with personalized insights on soil health, weather patterns, pest control, and crop market trends—helping them maximize productivity while adapting to the challenges of a changing climate.

“Food security and climate change are two bigger issues that the world is grappling with right now,” Priya Samant, co-founder of LetzFarm, told the Harvard Technology Review. “If we can make change in those areas through the medium of technology, it’s a win-win situation for everybody.”

The company has already launched in Trinidad and Tobago, working directly with farmers, governments, and institutions to integrate AI into daily agricultural practices.

The Challenge

Agriculture remains heavily reliant on intuition. While experiential knowledge is valuable, access to large-scale data analytics could help further optimize decision-making, resource utilization, and profitability. 

Without access to real-time weather predictions, soil analysis, and pest monitoring, farmers often struggle with crop losses due to unexpected weather changes (worsening due to climate change), use fertilizers and pesticides inefficiently, leading to wasted costs, and miss opportunities to plant high-value crops based on market trends. 

LetzFarm was built to tackle this problem.

Abris Inc., co-founded by Priya Samant and Arul Thomas, a company that initially worked with blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies, partnered with the Carbon Zero Institute of Trinidad and Tobago to found Letzfarm. The idea for LetzFarm emerged as Abris was exploring high-impact applications for AI.

“We knew AI is the key to disrupting the way things are happening,” Samant explains. “As all startups do, we kind of looked into various aspects of it and settled on two portfolios, one being real estate, and the other being agriculture. We have two tools we’ve focused on.”

The Carbon Zero Institute of Trinidad and Tobago serve as “a knowledge partner” helping them understand the Caribbean’s agricultural space and the market. 

On November 15, 2024, Samant and Arul launched the first version of the Letzfarm app in Washington, DC, in partnership with the Institute of Caribbean Studies, with members of the World Bank in attendance. 

“Right now, we are talking to other nations as well to expand Letzfarm,” Samant added. “The beauty of the app — and our value proposition to these nations — is that it aligns with the eight of the 17 United Nations SDG goals.”

Letzfarm’s Platform

Letzfarm consolidates global and local agricultural data into an AI-powered platform that farmers can access directly from their phones.

“We hope to provide farmers with the personalized knowledge that they need for soil management, weather management, pest management, as well as enhancing food security and creating sustainable livelihoods in those communities.

At the heart of LetzFarm is a powerful AI-driven advisory system that integrates real-time data, predictive analytics, and traditional farming wisdom.

“We have used an LLM model, and we are also trying to collect as much information from locals and farmers to better understand the size, location, soil, and crops in the areas we’re targeting,” Kuberan Selvaraj, one of the key architects behind Letzfarm, told the HTR.

The platform consolidates data from:

• Satellite imagery – To assess soil moisture, crop health, and pest infestations
• Local weather models – For real-time and long-term climate predictions
• Market price tracking – To guide farmers on crop selection based on projected profitability
• Governments  – Helping farmers take advantage of agricultural subsidies

“We provide multi-level information for the farmers, sort of like provide a hand-holding and then enrich his journey in terms of improving productivity,” Selvaraj said. 

Farmers can input their farm’s location and draw a boundary around it, with the app automatically calculating the size and pulling relevant soil data. 

This soil data allows LetzFarm to advise farmers on potential challenges they might face in their specific region. “We want to help them understand what the challenges in growing crops in their farm are, and what the plants that can be planted are,” Selvaraj said. “Other important questions are how to avoid erosion from a long-term perspective?”

“We push notifications to the farmers to say, you know, such and such weather extremes are going to happen,” Selvaraj noted. “And not just be aware, we also provide what are the mitigation plans that you can keep on.”

One of LetzFarm’s most unique features is its integration of traditional lunar cycle farming techniques.

“The harvests in Trinidad and Tobago, they are done on the waning moon,” Samant explained. “That’s how the agriculture happens there. So our platform can also tell farmers what phase of the moon they are in and how they can make decisions in terms of what plants to grow.”

This fusion of AI with traditional knowledge ensures that farmers can modernize their practices while still respecting age-old wisdom.

“The traditional names that the farmers use in the local region are also captured here,” Selvaraj added. “It is hard otherwise for them to know what they are planting if we use an American name.”

LetzFarm provides farmers with real-time recommendations on multiple aspects of farm management. The AI suggests the best crops to plant based on soil type, location, and weather conditions while also offering a pest detection feature. Farmers can upload images of their crops, and the AI will diagnose potential pest infestations and suggest treatment methods. The app also optimizes irrigation by recommending the best times and amounts of water to use based on forecasted weather conditions. Additionally, LetzFarm helps farmers navigate financial planning by identifying relevant government schemes and insurance policies that could benefit them.

“The main backbone of the whole app is the farm advisor AI tool, where the farmers can ask all relevant questions for their farm,” Selvaraj said. “It does not just provide agriculture-related information; it also provides financial, technical, essentially everything they need to know.”

One of the key features of LetzFarm is its companion planting advice, which helps farmers understand which crops grow best together. “This is some information that farmers will not be able to get from even their neighbors,” Selvaraj said. “Farmers in given areas are tuned to like certain plants, grow certain plants, and will tend to be scared to try out new plants because of the fact that they don’t understand how it grows.” 

The AI provides scientific validation for expanding cultivation practices while also ensuring that farmers make profitable planting decisions. LetzFarm also integrates a crop price forecasting system to help farmers decide which crops to grow based on market trends. 

“They can ask the AI: if I plant right now and when I am going to cultivate, will I get enough money from the market?” Selvaraj said. “For that, we have integrated with local service providers in terms of understanding the market price.” 

Accessibility

LetzFarm’s biggest strength is that it was designed with farmers at the center.

“Letzfarm isn’t built from the perspective of a technologist, like how we envision the farmers should do things. It’s made from the perspective of how farmers actually work,” Samant said. “We want to be farmer-first.”

This farmer-first approach has led to high adoption rates because: the interface is user-friendly (all farmers are given free demos and the app is easy to navigate), it respects traditional knowledge, and it is adaptable (AI recommendations adjust based on individual farmer feedback).

To ensure seamless integration, LetzFarm partners with local agricultural organizations.

“We have our on-ground partners who host training programs for the farmers,” Samant added. “Their culture is taken into consideration and their needs and wants are taken into consideration; the organizations are really helping us a lot since we’re outsiders to the way of life in the Caribbean.”

Expansion: The Future of LetzFarm

LetzFarm has already made significant strides in Trinidad and Tobago, but the company has global ambitions.

“Right now, we are talking to other nations as well as we speak,” Samant said. “We are having conversations in terms of expanding in Asian and African regions as well. We started through a grant award that we got from the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, and now, as we are in the growth stage, we are definitely looking for strategic VC funding.”

Beyond agriculture, LetzFarm envisions expanding into fisheries, livestock management, and even agricultural e-commerce.

“Eventually, LetzFarm might grow into a marketplace where it will become a one-stop solution for the farmers, for all that they need,” Samant explained. “We have clarity on what we are doing and how we want to do it. The roadmap is very clear, and we are looking forward to expanding this impact globally.”