Please describe your proposed solution

Description of solution: The solution will be a digital ledger and unique ID for every single agricultural field boundary and it's "crop-performance" of those fields historically over a 40 year period by using Satellite data as well as compared to other fields in the region, the ability to compare performance and yield over time is the most important base-line for optimising production, the ability to make this public and digital, will empower the entire value chain agricultural value chain. The solution will cover the extended areas we're building on from Fund 11, i.e. in Kenya and Tanzania, this will be the very first MVP and prototype of the unique technology. Links containing additional proof of previously successfully and in-progress projects, DigiFarm is working closely with NMKR on those proposals and initial pilot can be seen at the following link:

• Creating world's first digital identity for farmers using satellite imagery and AI
• World's first open ledger for in-field agricultural data based on open source SatEO

During this project, DigiFarm and NMKR is now looking to scale the scope of the work and bring this MVP to market.

Background and how we perceive the problem: the idea behind the solution was created by myself, DigiFarm’s Co-founder and CEO, Nils Helset, as I am a 15th generation farmer and crop-producer in Hamar, Norway where I saw the struggles and challenges farmers face day-to-day from the agricultural industry which is primarily controlled by centralised enterprise organisations from the crop input side, i.e. fertiliser (petrochemical companies), seed and crop protection companies, which has caused significant fragmentation for farmers, i.e. we are losing ownership to our own data, lack of choice in what we buy which leads to price control and farmers getting squeezed, financially, I have seen this development myself over the last decade or so, and I wanted to do something about it: I want to take back control and enable farmers like myself, smallholders, so that they can negotiate prices, and create a sustainable long-term family-driven business.

What are your reasons for approaching it in the way we have? The reason for addressing the challenge and building this solution comes from extensive experience in the agricultural industry, farmers, who are individuals are being taken advantage of by larger corporate organisations, I believe the only way to solve this is to take back control, and this starts with data and digital identity which creates transparency, i.e. farmers would be able to negotiate contracts, prices when there is complete transparency of what other farmers are being offered by these suppliers. The ability to share data among farmers and suppliers in the value chain, whether it’s for micro-financing, insurance, crop input such as buying seeds, fungicide, herbicide, fertiliser or real estate transactions and valuations, farmers desperately need more (a) transparent pricing from suppliers (b) control and bargaining power (c) more choice to buy crop-input products and services as well as more options for selling their crops (d) additional revenue streams: typically and currently larger agribusinesses are the ones benefiting from sustainable initiatives and ESG reporting while leaving farmers behind, this project and solution will completely change this and give the power back to the ones who need and deserve it, the farmers.

Who will our project engage? Our project will engage the last mile, i.e. smallholder farmers in Kenya and Tanzania, across the entire 60 million hectares of cropland area, our intention is to reach a minimum of 50% of these farmers within 24 months of the project completion. The project will also engage with the agricultural industry value chain, i.e. lending facilities, insurance companies, grain traders etc. to be able to negotiate better conditions and terms from various parts of the value chain, the ability to cooperate with not only farmers directly but creating a decentralised "marketplace" for farmers and the entire value chain to negotiate and interact will be critical for the future empowerment of farmers.

How will we demonstrate or prove our impact? DigiFarm has already successfully completed a Fund 8 funded project titled: "Open ledger for agricultural land" (Idea #18354) where the purpose and objective was to create the POC solution for digitising 914 agricultural field boundaries in Tanzania, where we showed the ability to leverage historical data (based on Satellite imagery) for optimising farmers production, i.e. lowering input costs by up to 5% and increasing yield potential by up to 5%. This has also been completed in parallel with other agricultural partners in Germany, France and Romania. Additionally, DigiFarm has further developed the idea in Fund 8 into two concepts which are currently funded in Fund 11, including: “Creating world's first digital identity for farmers using satellite imagery and AI” and idea #26780 along with “World's first open ledger for in-field agricultural data based on open source SatEO” idea #26818.

Explain what is unique about your solution, who will benefit, and why this is important to Cardano?

The uniqueness is multi-fold:

1. Why is it unique? There is currently no digital open-ledger for agricultural field boundaries and historical production data in Kenya or Tanzania, the regions still lag behind developed nations, where there is very outdated and inaccurate Cadastral and map-data.
2. Why is it important to Cardano? The ability to create this solution, the world’s very first digital ledger for these agricultural fields, will be a major milestone of the value that tokenization and blockchain can have in a very “traditional” and old industry which has historically struggled with digitisation and will prove a real world use-case of the technology, i.e. the agricultural value-chain is the optimal sector for this, as it lacks digitisation, transparency between the various stakeholders along the value-chain, from pre-production to retail, including lack of uniform formats, data standards, data sharing and value-based pricing, which has significantly hurt and challenged the most vulnerable farmers, i.e. smallholder farmers.

The solution to be developed in this project (Fund 12) is an extension of the work that has previously been completed in Fund 8 and subsequently Fund 11, and bring together all the technological elements in a MVPs and the ability to leverage the partners we are collaborating with partners such as NMKR and Tx.Pipe in order to create the world’s very first digital identify for the agricultural land and farmers in both Kenya and Tanzania.

Lastly, we plan to connect these NFTs with other relevant data sources. This integration aims to enhance the value of the NFTs by linking them with datasets such as weather patterns, soil health data, and crop yield forecasts.

Benefits:

1. Transparency and Traceability: By representing field boundaries as NFTs, we increase the transparency and traceability of agricultural data.
2. Data Accessibility: The embedded metadata makes crucial agricultural data readily accessible to researchers, policymakers, and farmers.
3. Future Integrations: Connecting these NFTs with other data sources opens up possibilities for comprehensive analytics and better decision-making in the agricultural sector.

Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

Agriculture is the world's largest industry. It employs more than one billion people and generates over $1.3 trillion dollars worth of food annually.

The industry is also one of the most traditional, non-digital industries, which is ripe for a revolutionary and innovative solutions to flip it around, as currently the industry is controlled and profited by the largest enterprises in the world, and every chain along the value chain, farmers are getting more squeezed financially, this is a unique opportunity to create complete transparency in all the chains of the value chain, including pricing and costs, which will benefit the farmer and enable them to take back the power to negotiate better terms and pricing.

This solution will create a large scale and potentially global application (as our solution is based on global optical Satellite data, available every 5 days) and use-case for the digital identity of smallholder farmers with global impact, and is essential for the Cardano community, and real-world use case of the technology.

Positive impact includes:

1. It will connect to an external ecosystem of companies such as microfinance, micro insurance, agri supply chains and more
2. It will connect to blockchain/cardano dapps such as Landano (land owership), Zengate.global (agri supply chain) or FIDA (micro insurance for farmers). In this proposal we will collaborate with Zengate.Global
3. Generating NFTs for agriculture land with dynamic metadeta and connection to other dapss will lead to more on chain transaction.

This would create an entirely new, unique and revolutionary framework for how we think about the agricultural value chain, one of the oldest and most traditional industry in the world, turning this up-side-down and creating sustainable effect for both global food supply but also importantly the smallholder farmers, who are stuck in the “rut” in a situation where there is almost no escape from status quo, the introduction of a large-scale ecosystem to support and drive (a) digital transformation among farmers and value chain (b) digital footprint of farmers © data ownership (d) reduction of Co2 emissions and in return scope 3 for the larger stakeholders, this should be a major focus for the Cardano initiative.

The solution will be under the MVP (use-cases) and will address several of the areas of interest expressed including:

1. Disruptive ideas for industrial innovation using Cardano blockchain and smart contracts: the solution will leverage Cardano blockchain for the core technology, i.e. digital identify of the farmers (i.e. field boundaries and their production history, derived from Satellite data)
2. Identity, privacy and zero knowledge applications and implementations: the ability to give farmers a unique ID on ledger with all their data, i.e. historical and in-season will instantly enable them to negotiate better prices on prices of their grain/crops, crop input products (fertiliser, seeds, crop protection), insurance premiums etc. Additionally, this same process will be used on the traceability and sustainability of any given agricultural field, which will enable carbon credits eligibility for both farmers and value chain, but importantly, decentralisation.
3. Technical blockchain development converging with other exponential technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine-to-machine, next-generation distributed compute: this project will leverage advanced deep neural network models for automatically detecting field boundaries and planted area, in-season and historically, using super-high resolution Satellite data, entirely trained on the fifth fastest supercomputer in the world, LUMI, leveraging cutting edge GPUs to ensure the highest possible output in performance and accuracy.

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

DigiFarm has successfully demonstrated it's internal capacity to successfully achieve KPIs in the project funded in Fund 8 "Open ledger for agricultural land" (Idea #18354) and was recently selected as one of the projects spotlighted amongst the recently completed 500 Catalyst projects and presented during the Town Hall (12.07.2023). The purpose and objective was to create the POC solution for digitising 914 agricultural field boundaries in Tanzania, where we showed the ability to leverage historical data (based on Satellite imagery) for optimising farmers production, i.e. lowering input costs by up to 5% and increasing yield potential by up to 5%. This has also been completed in parallel with other agricultural partners in Germany, France and Romania. Additionally, DigiFarm has further developed the idea in Fund 8 into two concepts which are currently funded in Fund 11, including: “Creating world's first digital identity for farmers using satellite imagery and AI” and idea #26780 along with “World's first open ledger for in-field agricultural data based on open source SatEO” idea #26818. Additionally, our involvement and commitment to the Cardano ecosystem and track-record highlights our ability to deliver the project with trust and accountability.

During the project we are also including key Cardano stakeholders and partners for milestones to complete the technical, blockchain components, this includes:

1. Patrick Tobler from NMKR

NMKR is a leading NFT infrastructure provider on the Cardano blockchain, offering a suite of tools that enable brands, companies, and enterprises to create and launch custom NFT projects with ease.

With a focus on accessibility, NMKR provides development APIs and No-Code building blocks that can be combined in a modular way to integrate NFT Minting and NFT Marketplace Trading functionalities on websites quickly and easily.

As the largest NFT infrastructure provider on the Cardano blockchain, NMKR has already minted over 2 Million NFTs and collaborated with high-profile celebrities and entities. By using NMKR , users can create unique NFT projects tailored to their specific needs, tapping into the growing market for digital assets.

At NMKR, we are committed to driving the adoption of digital assets and making NFT creation and trading accessible to everyone. Our platform's modular approach and user-friendly tools allow users to launch their NFT projects quickly and easily, without the need for advanced technical skills. We believe that NFTs represent the future of digital ownership and are excited to be at the forefront of this emerging market.

We will also be engaging and connecting with the broader Cardano community including Santiago Carmuega from Tx.Pipe, Zengate.Global team and Landano. These key resources will also ensure secure, reliable and professional execution of the project and technical development required to scale in the future and next phase.

What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Milestone 1: Milestone Title: Project Collaboration and Management

A. Milestone Outputs:

1. Project initiation and alignment of team members and partners
2. Coordinate with Cardano stakeholders including primarily NMKR formally and contractually align on work packages and responsibilities
3. Establish mid to long term collaboration plan and solutions to be developed further after MVP with Landano, TX.pipe and Zengate.global

B. Acceptance criteria:

1. Partnerships agreement signed between DigiFarm and the Cardano stakeholders
2. Successfully assignment of work packages, responsibilities, deliverables, timeline with milestones for each partner during the project period

C. Evidence of milestone completion:

1. Confirmation of the collaboration agreement in writing with NMKR
2. Documentation and design of further collaboration opportunities across the Cardano ecosystem with Landano, Tx.Pipe and Zengate.global

Milestone 2: Milestone Title: Processing super-high resolution Satellite data (at 1 meter resolution) for the agricultural fields in Kenya and Tanzania

A. Milestone Outputs:

1. Processing Satellite imagery data from Sentinel-2 across the region for three consecutive years (2022, 2023 and 2024) across 3 million hectares of crop land area in Kenya and Tanzania
2. Collecting and creating the manual training data for the AI model, i.e. manual labelling data based on the super-high resolution SatEO data, i.e. approx. 30,000 hectares of labelled data (1%)
3. All SatEO imagery data at 1 meter pixel resolution processed across the entire country-wide scale of Tanzania and Kenya for 2023/2024 season successfully (68m hectares) including creation of mosaic base-map available in open web-app for end-users and Cardano environment.

B. Acceptance criteria:

1. Successfully processed all the Satellite imagery at 1 meter per pixel resolution across the 3 million hectares in Kenya and Tanzania for the 3 years
2. Successfully processed 3 images per growing season, i.e. 9 cloud-free images in total from the 3 years for the entire 3 million hectares
3. Successfully processed 12 spectral bands from 10 meter to 1 meter from Sentinel-2 (from European Space Agency)

C. Evidence of milestone completion:

1. Produced Geotiffs files available in Gdrive for the reviewer of the all Satellite imagery data
2. Created and visible web-application displaying all the Satellite imagery on a digital map

Milestone 3: Milestone Title: Automatically delineated field boundaries and planted area (3 years) in Kenya and Tanzania and performance benchmark

A. Milestone Outputs:

1. Developing the deep neural network model (AI) for automatically delineating field boundaries in two crop-regions of Kenya and Tanzania, i.e. including model training on high-performance GPUs and the world’s 5th fastest supercomputer (LUMI)
2. Successfully delineated field boundaries across the 3 years (2022, 2023 and 2024) for the area of interest in Kenya and Tanzania with an accuracy of above 0.93 IoU (Intersection over Union)
3. Manually collected 30,000 field boundaries as training data across the areas
4. Digitised 3 million hectares in Kenya and Tanzania
5. Successfully processed and detected 3 million hectares of cropland area in Kenya and Tanzania, available in API or Geosjon/Geopackage format

B. Acceptance criteria:

1. Inferring the results of the model on a map, i.e. automatically delineated field boundaries across 3 million hectares in Kenya and Tanzania over 3 years (2022-2024)
2. Analysing the change in field boundaries and planted area (based on biomass from Satellite imagery data from the 3 years) and adding this to the meta-data of each individual field boundary
3. Creating the API endpoint and response (Geojson/Geopackage) which will be available for the stakeholders in the project to access and put on the blockchain
4. Custom developed front-end web application for the output data, i.e. field boundaries and API, need to a lot of transactions and big clients, Kenya and Tanzania

C. Evidence of milestone completion:

1. Evidence from Wandb.ai and associated tools to prove the evidence of field boundary accuracy (0.93) in areas (Kenya and Tanzania) in a PDF or digital link
2. Field boundaries digitised and available in a GIS-format (Geojson/Geopackage) as well as in a digital web-app available to access for the Cardano community

Milestone 4: Milestone Title: Connecting ecosystems and blockchain

Milestone Objective: The objective is to mint 10,000 Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) that represent the field boundaries across Kenya and Tanzania. These NFTs will be enriched with metadata that includes crucial agricultural data, such as the planted area in hectares over three different growing seasons.

A. Milestone Outputs:

1. Successfully added 10 rows of data-points and meta-data in API response for a sample of 10,000 field boundaries in Kenya and Tanzania, of which change in planted area (measured in hectares) is documented
2. Successfully created API unique token to be shared with partners in project for integration of data onto blockchain
3. Minting of NFTs: We propose to create 10,000 NFTs, each corresponding to a unique agricultural field in Kenya and Tanzania.These NFTs will digitally represent the geographical boundaries of each field. Metadata Inclusion: Each NFT will include metadata that provides additional information about the field it represents. This metadata will include the area planted (in hectares) for the past three agricultural seasons, providing a historical perspective on the usage of each field.

B. Acceptance criteria:

1. Successfully minted 10,000 NFTs on the blockchain by NMKR
2. Successfully added meta-data to the 10,000 NFTs

C. Evidence of milestone completion:

1. Proof of minted 10,000 NFTs on the blockchain

Milestone 5: Milestone Title: Integration with other data sources

A. Milestone Outputs:

1. We plan to connect these NFTs with other relevant data sources. This integration aims to enhance the value of the NFTs by linking them with datasets such as weather patterns, soil health data, and crop yield forecasts.
2. Integrate with potential partners including Zengate.global and Landano along with additional stakeholders.

B. Acceptance criteria:

1. Technical plan and objectives outlined for cooperation with Zengate.global and Landano
2. Identified additional opportunities and scale-up partners

C. Evidence of milestone completion:

1. Document (PDF) with planned scale up
2. Documentation proving connection of NFTs to other sources, including weather patterns, soil health data and crop yield data.

Final Milestone: Milestone Title: Scaling of solution

A. Milestone Outputs:

1. Demonstrated over 500 transactions on the NFTs across the ecosystem from the dataset (10,000 fields)
2. Successfully piloted the NFT and solution technically on the chain, i.e. both in terms of engagement from community, transactions and performance sufficient to support large scale solution
3. Technical plan and roadmap for being able to scale the solution further, i.e. targeting specific and custom use-cases along with making a plan to get to 100 million hectares of farm land within 2025 (18 months)
4. Ability to showcase and highlight ability to save 5-10% on microfinancing from the 10,000 NFT dataset in Kenya and Tanzania

B. Acceptance criteria:

1. Successful demonstration of 500 transactions and 10,000 NFTs on the chain
2. Feasibility plan based on this project's success and performance which shows clear plan to 100 million hectares within 18 months
3. 5-10% reduction in financing for any given farm and associated crop fields in Kenya and Tanzania

C. Evidence of milestone completion:

1. Documented 500 transactions on the blockchain
2. 10,000 NFTs and log, activity and ledger reporting and proving the usage
3. Buy-in from Cardano stakeholders and plan for the next phase of the project to scale-up solution

Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

The project partners including NMKR and DigiFarm are ideal for the project and development of this MVP.

DigiFarm’s team has extensive experience in (a) developing agricultural technology for crop-monitoring using AI and remote sensing (Satellite data) to the agribusinesses market (B2B/B2G) using SaaS-models. Successfully built commercial agricultural technological solutions using remote sensing (Satellite-data) and AI across 100 million hectares: >90% accuracy in crop Detection and >85% accuracy in yield-prediction in soybean and corn (US/Brazil) (b) core team has over 15+ years of on-the-ground crop-producing (farming) experience and close partnership withs Felleskjøpet (largest ag-coop in Norway, NLR (Norwegian Agricultural Advisory Organisation) and University of Life Sciences (NMBU) (c) commercial and corporate Ag-market: over 20+ years combined corporate agriculture leadership experience (d) over 40+ experience in agronomy academic research internationally. Additional qualifications in DigiFarm’s core team and founders (10) include technical and agronomical experience: (a) over 40 years combined international work experience in precision-Ag projects in Canada, USA, Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, Australia, Russia and Ukraine (b) successfully filed 5 patents (AI-based technologies) in agriculture/biology (e) developed technology for Zoner.ag (one of first geospatial web-platforms for analyzing agricultural fields) successfully acquired by Bayer to become the geospatial engine of Xarvio digital-farming platform (owned by BASF). It is also important to mention here that DigiFarm is a fully independent Norwegian organisation, we have not raised any VC capital and are fully bootstrapped since 2019, this approach and independence makes us an ideal fit for this project.

NMKR, The NMKR Studio (previously NFT-MAKER PRO) API is one of the biggest NFT APIs on Cardano. It removes the complexity of building on the Cardano blockchain by creating easy-to-use endpoints that can be utilized by regular developers. NMKR is the world‘s leading brand to enable NFT minting on Cardano for a mainstream audience. The easily accessible interface and simple process provide a comprehensive digital art platform to mint, view, and trade NFTs. NMKR has currently minted more than 2 Million NFTs and has worked with high-profile clients, including celebrities like Martin Lawrence and foundational entities of the Cardano Blockchain: IOHK (IOG), Emurgo, and the Cardano Foundation.

Full list of team members includes:

• Nils Helset, 15th generation farmer in Norway. Extensive experience with precision agriculture services and agronomy - over 8 years experience in crop-producing, managing over 40k decares of pilot farmers with Felleskjøpet. Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilshelset/
• Konstantin Varik - built advanced AI models in agriculture using remote sensing for over 8 years including AI model for crop-yield prediction for maize and soybeans for USA, Brazil and Argentina with 98-99% yield-prediction accuracy 1-1.5 months prior to harvesting (data provided to the USDA). Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varik/
• Alex Melnichouck founded B2B ag-tech startups Zoner.ag in 2012 (acquired by BASF in 2015), led and managed the global BASF digital farming team for over 4 years. Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-melnitchouck-8977a522/
• Yosef Akhtman founded and grew Gamaya, Swiss-based ag-tech startup focused on remote sensing and AI funded by Mahindra. Yosef is a scientist and inventor with over 5 registered patents in agriculture and biology. Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akhtman
• Patrick Tobler is the founder and CEO of NMKR, extensive experience in blockchain development and have successfully delivered several projects in the Cardano ecosystem. NMKR is a leading NFT Creation, Minting & Trading Infrastructure provider on the Cardano blockchain, with a proven history of delivering robust and reliable solutions. Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-tobler-6593b912b/

Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

The project timeline is estimated to be 9 months, which will enable us to capture and build the models during the growing season in Kenya and Tanzania. The total crop land area to be delineated and analysed is 28 million hectares in Kenya and 40 million in hectares in Tanzania, total of 68 million hectares over a 3 year period (2022, 2023 and 2024). The project is ambitious and comprehensive and uniquely innovative as this has not been done previously, both processing entire nations with 1 meter per pixel resolution Satellite imagery (Sentinel-2) but also for automatically delineating boundaries and historical productivity (biomass/yield) over a 35 year period, this project will open up significant opportunities for the eco-system to build services on the dataset.

The external services we will leverage includes:

1. AWS cloud environment for the processing of Sentinel-2 L2A/L1C data
2. Saga, Betzy and LUMI from EuroHPC and Uninett/Sigma2, who is Norway's National HPC Infrastructure Organisation, LUMI is the world's fifth fastest supercomputer, which we will train the models on, this supports the open data initiative, to build solutions on Sentinel-2 and LUMI
3. Github/Tensorflow in addition to other software/PM tools
4. NMKR will support the blockchain integration and minting of the NFTs

Hosting for the project website and code repositories are provided free of charge via Github. Community outreach will be done via (free) Linkedin, Facebook and YouTube accounts along with Project Catalyst communication channels.

Detailed roadmap above for descriptions of the tasks and work products that will be delivered in three, four-week sprints

• Month 1-3: 550 hours x 175 ADA = 96,250 ADA
• Includes processing the data-layers for the areas and regions, Kenya and Tanzania (Sentinel-2 at 1 meter across 3 years, web map creation, API and database development)
• Team/personnel costs: includes GIS-engineers and Data Scientists (Konstantin Varik, Elena Athanasopoulou) along with full-stack engineers Frank Sagini, Morris Warachi and Girish Pallagatti
• Month 3-5: 450 hours x 175 ADA = 78,750 ADA
• Includes: processing time-series data for crop phenology, i.e. every 5 days from the growing season for each field, field boundary delineation and seeded acres across 3 years, minting initial batch of NFTs for the field boundary and meta-data
• Team/personnel costs: includes GIS-engineers and Data Scientists (Konstantin Varik, Santiago Nullo, Elena Athanasopoulou) along with full-stack engineers Frank Sagini, Morris Warachi and Girish Pallagatti
• Month 5-7: 300 hours x 175 ADA = 52,500 ADA
• Includes: developing the final MVP for the solution to be launched, i.e. minting of NFTs with all meta-data for digitised field boundary (time-series, productivity history +)
• Team/personnel costs: includes NMKR (Patrick Tobler) and DigiFarm's GIS-engineers and Data Scientists (Konstantin Varik, Santiago Nullo, Elena Athanasopoulou) along with full-stack engineers Frank Sagini, Morris Warachi and Girish Pallagatti
• Month 7-9: 150 hours x 175 ADA = 26,250 ADA
• Includes: launching the solution and building traction including marketing of the solution to Cardano ecosystem but also the broader agricultural value chain in Kenya and Tanzania (Safaricom, Agricultural Finance Corporation, IM Bank etc)
• Team/personnel costs: includes NMKR (Patrick Tobler), Nils Helset, Ben Rizo from DigiFarm's partnership side as well as DigiFarm's engineering team: Santiago Nullo, Elena Athanasopoulou and Girish Pallagatti
• TOTAL: 253,750 ADA

DigiFarm has partnered up with NMKR to tokenise and create the very first NFT for the individual field boundaries and farmers in Kenya and Tanzania during this project. This will enable wide-scale adoption, exposure and an entire eco-system available and open to the Cardano community to build upon and provide additional value, creating the very first digital identity for smallholder farmers, in the world, including over 40+ years of in-field crop production (biomass/yield) to support farmers achieve better terms on credit lines, insurance premiums, agronomical advice and better decisions in their quest to become financially viable.

How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

What we're developing in this project is an "enabler" or a baseline of fundamental data that the ecosystem can build further upon as a community, this is an important component of the vision as digital field boundaries, historical productivity data in a fully independent and unique format (block-chain) represents significant value not only for the Cardano ecosystem as a positive influence on sustainability, digitisation and "oracle" in agricultural farming market as well as this project will directly affect the lives of smallholder farmers in both Kenya and Tanzania, opening up a dataset to entire 68 million crop land to create opportunities, this has not been done before due to several bottlenecks such as:

1. Availability of high resolution Satellite data: DigiFarm's deeply resolved Sentinel-2 at 1 meter represents a unique technology ideally suited for the region, seeing as the high resolution is needed to be able to derive analytics for the boundaries which are typically very small, i.e. 0.5 hectares and below, the alternative to using our data would be to have to buy commercial grade SatEO and the closest resolution wise would be having to buy Airbus Pleaidas data at 50cm which costs €8 per sq.km, considering both countries include a total land area of 680,000 sq.km and we'd require 3-dates the total cost would be €16,320,000 just for the input data to deliver and provide these data layers in the region.
2. Additionally, seeing as DigiFarm leverages open source and publicly available data from Sentinel-2 and then run our deep-resolution on it from 10m to 1m this is ideal to be able to keep promoting the open source and independent use of data to support the ecosystem.
3. Lastly, if we could reach 50,000 farmers which is the goal at the end of this project (and to extend this to 500k the following 18 months) and save 10% on crop input and lower insurance/financing cost by 10%, this is a critical and high potential project.