Vonnie Estes:
Welcome to PMA Takes on Tech. The podcast that explores the problems, solutions, people and ideas that are shaping the future of the produce industry. I'm your host, Vonnie Estes, Vice President of Technology for the Produce Marketing Association, and I've spent years in the ag-tech sector. So I can attest, it's hard to navigate this ever-changing world in developing and adopting new solutions to industry problems. Thanks for joining us and for allowing us to serve as your guide to the new world of produce and technology. My goal of the podcast is to outline a problem in the produce industry, and then discuss several possible solutions that can be deployed today.
Special New Fruit Licensing, SNFL, is a global leader in the research, development and licensing of premium grape varieties worldwide, servicing nearly 900 growers across 16 countries. Through 25+ years of experience, SNFL is committed to delivering tomorrow's varieties of table grapes today. Their proprietary in-house grape genesis program converges agronomy with flavor, creating value for growers, differentiations for retailers, and taste for consumers. Please visit www.snfl-group.eu for more information. SNFL, delivering science, technology and innovation in partnership with nature.
We are especially happy to have SNFL sponsor this episode, because of their strong presence and support in Chile in table grapes.
This episode is focused on Chile, the largest fruit exporter in South America, responsible for 60% of all fruit exports. Chile is the leading exporter of fresh blueberries, grapes, plums, dried apples and prunes. It is also the second largest exporter of avocados, cherries, walnuts and raspberries. Grape is the leading fruit, followed by apples and blueberries.
In 2019, the fruit growing sector in Chile achieved record exports or over $6.5 billion USD, with an increase of 3.6% compared to 2018. This is a reflection of Chile's strategy of expanding into new markets, which has led to a significant increase in the number of export destinations, up from 78 markets in 2003 to 129 in 2019.
In the last decade, the Chilean government started to seriously consider public and private investments in the development of agricultural innovation in the country. In collaboration with the World Bank, the government implemented a plan to fund technological agricultural innovations to project the sector into the future. By 2017, the government had begun to work with farmers, private investors, researchers and technology firms to develop functional ingredients and specialty additives of natural origin in Chile. This project had a public investment of $3.6 billion USD.
Technology has played a big role in this boom. Technological improvements enable new varieties, earlier crops and improved quality and improved shelf life for exports. In this episode, we will hear about the public-private relationships, and its value to the produce industry in Chile. First, we will hear from Andres Rodriguez, the agricultural attaché to the U.S. in the Embassy of Chile. He is also a friend and prior employee of PMA. Andres talks about how Chile got from Ag1.0 to now Ag5.0. He also introduces the importance of innovation to the Ministry of Ag in Chile. Innovation is a major pillar, as we will discuss later, with members from the INIA, which is the Ag Research Institute, and the Foundation of Agrarian Innovation, FIA. Let's drop in to the conversation with Andres.
Andres Rodriguez:
Today I'm currently the Agricultural Attaché of Chile to the United States and Canada. My background in Chile was mainly related to the trade associations in the agricultural sector, and my last position in Chile was representing PMA for the Chilean members.
Vonnie Estes:
Great. We love that. When was that, when were you working with PMA in Chile?
Andres Rodriguez:
I worked with PMA in Chile until May 2019. Yeah, so it was very exciting to work with PMA in increasing the memberships and trying to develop more interesting initiatives for the Chilean members. We created different task forces, and webinars, and seminars, and many different things that were very interesting to develop. It was a great challenge.
Vonnie Estes:
Some of the listeners to this podcast may not be aware of what food is grown in Chile. Can you tell us what's grown there, and how much is exported, or if it's just grown for the internal market?
Andres Rodriguez:
Well, Chile as you know is a small country. We have a population of about 19 million people. But it's got a great potential of agriculture. And we mainly focus on exports, so there is a great proportion of agriculture that it's for our exports. Today, if we consider all the food sector, Chile exports approximately $18 billion in food products, and actually it's the second largest industry after mining. And for far is the main non-mining in Chile. If we consider only the produce sector, today Chile is exporting about $6 billion in fresh fruit, mainly. Basically table grapes, cherries, blueberries, stone fruits, palm fruits, kiwi fruits and some others.
Vonnie Estes:
Great. So, this podcast focuses on technology primarily. Can you talk about what technology is being developed and used in Chile in the food supply chain?
Andres Rodriguez:
Yeah, well I would say that probably similar to what has happened in the rest of the world, we moved from agriculture 1.0 to agriculture 5.0 where we have that transit from the Asian times of the agriculture, like the basic agriculture, then moving to the use of materials in agriculture that was very important in Chile as well. You see a lot of the use of machinery in the agriculture. And afterward, moving to agriculture 3.0, with the use of high tech sensors of automatization, a lot of that today you see on the fields and also in the facilities that process fruit in Chile.
Then agriculture 4.0, with the use of data, a very data driven technologies, like big data, the use of, for example internet of things, and many other trends that we could see at that point. And today, even reaching the agriculture 5.0, it has more to do with the artificial intelligence, with robotics applied in agriculture as well. So we have seen probably all those trends. Chile has a very long agriculture tradition and history, so we have been developing our own technologies, but also importing many technologies from overseas. Chile is very well connected with the world in this regard, actually Chile is a very open economy, so we are always looking for new technologies, what can be imported, what can be improved, what can we export also to other markets, in many other fields but also in the agriculture.
And I would say that something that probably has been very important especially in the last years has been how to be more efficient in the use of water. So, that has been something crucial that probably, with the climate change and many other factors, the world is facing this huge challenge, and Chile of course is not an exception.
Vonnie Estes:
You mentioned that some of the technology is developed there in Chile, so what is the ecosystem for developing ag technology in Chile? What does that look like, and how could it be further developed so that you could have people in-country developing technology for you to use, that understand your market the best?
Andres Rodriguez:
Well, I think that today there is a good environment for innovation in general, I would say. Actually if you see the Chilean government, actually for example doing a Zoom in the Ministry of Agriculture, innovation is one of the main pillars of the Ministry of Agriculture. Actually under the Ministry of Agriculture, you have two main agencies that are INIA, that is the Research, Development and Innovation agency, and you have FIA, that is the Agriculture Innovation Foundation, which mainly promotes the innovation in the agriculture sector and the ag food chain.
And besides what the government could do in this regard, we see today that agriculture is much more trendy, I would say, than before. Because usually, years ago when you were thinking about innovation, probably you were not thinking necessarily about agriculture.
Today I would say that especially because Chile is important in agriculture production, all the innovation and the technology, it's also focused in this important field and important sector for Chile. So I would say that besides what the public sector could do in this regard with funding some projects of course, but also working together with the private sector in terms of a strategy nationwide, and how we can approach these common goals.
You see also that there is a different mood in general in the private sector as well. In the universities actually there are some incubators that are also including some agriculture projects within their portfolio, but also even seeing some incubators that are focusing on agricultures specifically. So yeah, so in general I would say that today there is an interesting environment to develop new technologies and innovations related to the agricultural sector.
Vonnie Estes:
And it sounds like, with these accelerators and these different companies, who's investing the money to get those going? Is that government, or NGOs, or external money from outside the country? Where's the funding coming from?
Andres Rodriguez:
Well, in some cases you see the government, that it's funding. Normally part of those projects, or depending, there are different models of course. But you see some other funds coming from the private sector as well, even from these accelerators or private investors that are interested in increasing the productivity, the yields, or being more efficient in terms of resources in their own companies, or in a certain cluster within the agriculture. So yeah, you see different models, but funds coming from the private and public sector for sure.
Vonnie Estes:
Okay. My last question is, you mentioned water and how important that is, and that's important everywhere. Some places it's important because there's too much of it or it falls at the wrong time, but with climate change that's changing, and people are trying to respond. Do you think that's the most important area for technology to be developed for in Chile right now, or what do you see really needs to be developed and moved along?
Andres Rodriguez:
Yeah. Well, I would say that for sure one of the main issues in Chile, it's water management. And as you say, probably worldwide. But yeah, beside the water management, that it's one of the main challenges, I would say that today, for example, producing with less pesticides, for example. Being more sustainable in general, not only with the use of water resources, but also the soil erosion, for example. Being more productive, lowering the costs and producing more. I think that the technologies can be very helpful in all those matters.
And also, for example, the traceability. That's something that's been a trend worldwide in agriculture. I think, for example, and especially in the companies that are currently exporting to the States, it is a great aspect to consider, for example with FSMA, this must to be able to have the traceability from the farms to the final customer here in the States. So I think that the technology, the innovation could be of great help to achieve those goals for sure.
Vonnie Estes:
We will now hear from Stanley Best, from the Ministry of Agriculture in Chile, INIA, which is the Agriculture Research Institute. Stanley talks about bringing technology to the farm, and how adoption occurs. He also talks about where innovation comes from.
After Stanley, we will hear from Al, who graciously said I could call him Al because no American can pronounce his name. Al is from the Foundation for Agrarian Innovation, or FIA. Al has had a long career in both the public and private sector, and has some great insights on the power of plant breeding, and Chile's adaptation to climate change. First, Stanley.
Stanley Best:
Okay, today Agriculture Research Institute of Chile, is the government institution that make, or is in charge of the research in agriculture and forestry in Chile. We have a part of our resources are coming from the government, and another part coming from the private sector. In Chile, we have a mix. It's not just the government that give the resources for the research.
Each money that the government puts, there must be some money from the private sector. With that you make the research more close to the necessities of the sector. And this is the way that we work in here. Our mission is related to the maintenance and sustainability of the agricultural sector, and improve the incomes of the people in the different relative states. The big farmers, medium farmers, and the small farmers, because sometimes they need more help. In the area of research, maybe it's in the healthy part, but in the area of technology and transparency, that maybe is in the lower part of the producers.
Related with myself, I study agronomies as a base, and after made my Master's in agriculture engineering and bio sources in agriculture engineering. It was in U.S., and after I came here and I started running all the research to make with the precision farming. That was the first wave of the technology that we have it around the world. And this opened all the different things related to the technologies, but it was a little lax in the connection with the real life in agriculture. And this, I think in the last five or maybe a little more years, everything changed into the agriculture 4.0 that is more related to the artificial intelligence, they put more knowledge and they analyze all this data that you get from the technologies, machinery, and all these things that they were coming from the precision farming. Pulling down into the connection to the user experience. The farmers and the companies, the lag or the distance between the actual knowledge and the farmers is huge. You need to see how you can pull down all this knowledge into the possibilities of the farmer to use.
This start to change, and with Corona Virus, related what we're doing here, the connection, the communication through the internet, or all the ICPs that they are evolved today with the necessities for the Corona Virus that you cannot go to the fields, or many things like that. Made inquiries in the advance in the technology to set it by the farmers and company, they start to change.
And this in fact will open other things like the possibilities, new regulation and new things that they start to coming from the different sector. In Chile, we are a country in which our agriculture is more supported by the fruit production and wine production, I'm sure you already drink Chilean wines. This is our big business as agriculture. Additional crops, or cattles, or these kind of thing, they are not big in Chile, it's just for something for us. And we have big, big, big countries like Argentina, Brazil, that they are next to us, we cannot compete. In wheat, or in corn, or cattles or other things.
This area is to maintain us in Chile, but our big business is related to fruit production and wineries. And in these areas, we need to improve the quality, the safety issues related to the production, maintain the environment, many things that the commercial area start to searching in this kind of product.
Vonnie Estes:
How do you work actually with the producers? Do you have seminars, or when it's not COVID do you go out and visit the farm, or do you have projects that you set up? What's the interaction?
Stanley Best:
The interaction between the companies is we're working, really close connection with the companies. Companies see the problem that they have, related with whatever issue, irrigate, infection, whatever. They come in to us, we start to talking, to see the possibilities of solution, and we apply for a grant. That is related with money from the government and money from the companies, and we work with them. And after getting the solution, we open through the seminars and technology transformation of fields, indoors, and we start to make a really connection with companies. Serious companies too, because finally the producers, or the company that produce something, they want a service. They want something that maintain the system by the time. That way we start to working as an institution with this company, not only to support and increase and develop a new area of business that is the technology business to support the company.
In my institution I am the National Director in the Digital and Agriculture. Everything that is related with electronic, informatics or whatever in Chile, I'm in charge of that. And we have 12 different centers around, you know Chile's pretty long.
We have from area with ice and in areas that is the biggest desert in the world. That is quite big differences in weather, in which each area create an environment of development of the producers that is different in the north than in the south. We have different station connection with these companies, and they start to develop new technology and make the knowledge a fit for them with the universities, with the service company, try to create a support, push out the startups and these kind of things.
Vonnie Estes:
Where does the technology come from? You mentioned universities, does some of it come out of universities, or are they companies that are being companies in Chile, or is it technology out of the country? Where does the technology come from?
Stanley Best:
What we start to see, and I think it's all around the world, private companies, service company, there are so many development of the capacities like tasting that they are in the market right now. Not like in the past, that they were just in the universities or these kind of centers. But today there are a lot of research that is making into the companies too. And in this area, that is more related with the technical things. Sometimes they know the electronic or informatics or these kind of thing, but it doesn't have the connection with the way they work in the field, the agronomy part.
And in this case, we started working with them too, to get advances in this area. This capital is coming from the Chilean companies that they start to create, as well as it's coming from outside from Chile, to Chile through some dealers. That they start to try to sell this kind of technology, but sometime it's difficult because one of the problem that we found with the digitalization of the agriculture is there are different companies. You have the companies of irrigation, you have the company of fertility, you have different company. Sometimes the inter-operation of those companies is not that good.
And a company, for example if I were a vineyard, I want to have just one thing which I can see everything.
And this simple operation, it starts to create, not just in Chile, I think in U.S. and Europe and different areas, that the development start to create a connection through the APIs to get this inter-operation through the different systems. And if you see a little bit high, you start to see big companies like Dole, with the global ending, you see IBM with their system. They start to create this inter-operated environment that they start to combine. And this is what we're talking around now, because with that amount of information you start to create artificial intelligence. You start to create intelligence for the data, to create it specifically. This is what we are in right now, I see it all around the world.
Vonnie Estes:
Yeah. What areas of research and solution development needs more work? Do you think it's around this area of artificial intelligence and data analysis, is that the most important thing?
Stanley Best:
I think the most important things, it's not in the area of technology development, it's in the refrain. We are a lack of people that understood, as a user. Sometimes you have technology, but their final users doesn't know nothing about this. It's like Chinese, Mandarin.
And it is, in this area I think the technology transfer or the structure of the careers that we have, have not made the evolution that they should have. Because they are not a market, the market is in there but it's growing, it's not big enough to make the change into the universities or the institutions, to create a new issue.
Vonnie Estes:
You have a very interesting career. I want to hear about your current role at FIA, and I also want to talk a little bit about your years with DuPont and all the technology you have seen over the years in the country. First, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your career, including your work at FIA.
Alvaro (Al) Eyzaguirre:
Okay Vonnie, thank you very much. My name is Alvaro Eyzaguirre. I'm working, actually the Director at the Foundation of Agrarian Innovation at the Ministry of Agriculture of Chile. I have been here since March 2018, and prior to that I spent many years, I did most of my career was at Pioneer DuPont, I was there for 29 years.
Vonnie Estes:
How has technology changed agriculture over the decades that you have been involved, in Chile?
Alvaro (Al) Eyzaguirre:
Well, it has been great to see all the change. It has been really a huge change when it comes to technologies and agriculture. I had the luck of being working for Dupont Pioneer for those 29 years. I started on research, so it was basically planned reading, and later on the bio technologies I was working on that. It was quite, quite exciting. Later on I moved into the supply management area, which was also a very interesting area on the seed production. And later on I ended working on the business, responsible for the business in Chile, Peru and Bolivia.
The technologies I saw over my career with Pioneer was amazing. Not only as part of Pioneer, which is of course a leading company, today is called Corteva, Pioneer at Dupont. And this company really gave Chile and other countries of the world top breeding materials which really impact the world, the food security when it comes to high yield, resistant to disease or something. But when you think about overall, biotech was really, really important. Planned genetics, very important.
And when it comes today, when we talk about Ag4.0 is today a reality today here in Chile as it does in other countries, it's probably one of the most challenging things on agriculture today in which some countries can go faster than others. However, no matter where you are located in the agriculture chain, you can be a small farmer and you have a lot of big range of opportunities to use this Ag4.0. Or if you are really a top notch farmer, you can also have... There's always a gap. There's always a technology gap which makes this very exciting. The integration of technologies that today we can see, after as I mentioned in all my years I have seen a lot of very, very interesting developments when it comes to mechanics, automation, later on the precision farming and all those things really added value to the process, to the proactivity of this activity.
And today, I would say that it's really, really amazing what artificial intelligence brings, how you can integrate the information. We are operating today with big data. Big data is a tremendous source of quality information that allows, through artificial intelligence, to come out with precise and accurate information for decision making. And that's something that we think that agriculture is working with living plants and animals. All the growth of an animal or a plant is related to many, many factors. You have temperature, you have the nutrition, you have a lot of things which, if you integrate all this you get the perfect formula on what is needed to really achieve the expectation, and on the other hand use the right resources.
Now, today we know climate change is putting tremendous challenges on people. We need to use the resources in the best way. We cannot go and utilize things like the word abundant. Today we think about water, climate change is really, really affecting. And we think about our case in particular in Chile, Chile is one of the countries worldwide that is suffering the most, or is the most affected by this challenge. Chile has seven out of the nine elements that the United Nations has defined as elements that make a country vulnerable. So we are vulnerable among the climate change, and we're seeing. We have faced a bad, bad drought. A long drought, more than 15 years in which we have not seen the rains that we were used to.
That's impacting agriculture, it's impacting the farmers on their decisions. Some farmers are not able to keep doing what they have done over years. Other farmers, with the glass half full, we have tremendous opportunity. We, at our foundation, in which we are devoted to promote and work on innovation, well we take climate change as a big and exciting challenge. We foresee opportunities to do agriculture or plant crops, for example, on areas that never, ever before you would have thought about it. We are producing almonds, in very southern Chile we are producing wine in Patagonia, we're doing a lot of very exciting things, taking advantage of this challenge that can be terrible for many farmers. But on the other hand it offers opportunities.
Vonnie Estes:
Yeah, and growing those crops in different places is really important then to have the technology that you were talking about in ag4.0, where you are gathering the data and you're understanding what is happening with the temperature, and the water and all of the at information. So I hadn't thought of that, but that's very smart that you're now saying okay, climate change is happening, it's happening to us, and we have this information and this data that we can use to help us determine where we can grow different crops and move with climate change, because you can't completely stop it. So that's very interesting. My next question is, what has been the most surprising to you? That's what surprising to me, but what has been something that you didn't expect would happen, or you couldn't have predicted early on in your career that's happening now?
Alvaro (Al) Eyzaguirre:
All my life I have enjoyed and I have been quite impressed about many, many changes. From very basic farm activities up to high technology things. We think about what communication means, what it means to carry an intelligent mobile on your pocket, and you have access to all the information while you are working your corn out in the field. And that was quite exciting when I was working with Pioneer and doing all the planned reading, I was taking notes out in the field with my laptop, and I was able in the shade of a tree to send all this data to the U.S. and I'm talking about quite a time ago.
So, all these changes have been quite exciting. To me, I would say today, and probably because I'm thinking on the future but enjoying the present, to me agri 4.0 has been the most surprising thing. When we consider this integration of data coming from these sensors, recording the temperature, the air, the soil, and then putting together that with satellite and drone images. And on top of that you get other elements and you do know from signs what a plant or an animal requires to grow in the most efficient and effective way, that's really exciting. And we see today a lot of things that are going on, and at the same time the future, it's amazing.
Something that is very, very important, part of this integration that also excites me a lot. Chile produces a lot of fruits, a lot of food. We are helping feed the world, from being a very small country. However, when it comes to food production, we feel very proud about it. And one of the things that also, besides the nice weather and the soil. Our territory is so broad. We are a very skinny, slim country, however that allow us also to be in a very broad range, a big distance.
Now, something that is also a particular condition from Chile is our light. The sunlight we get here compared to other countries, we do not get any rain at all during the spring and summer time, for example. So most days are clear skies, and compared to other countries in the world it's really a benefit. That allows Chile not only to produce good and healthy food and fruits, et cetera, but also to take advantage or the sun energy. Solar panels are the future in Chile. Chile has the driest and one of the largest desert in the world. That land is not good for farming today, there are opportunities, however it's a tremendous opportunity to generate this energy from sunlight. When we integrate this energy, so low cost energy, together with such a long coast, Chile has 5,000 kilometers of coast, and we have all that ocean, we have all that water there.
So we are suffering from this drought, and we have the ocean there. So there is water. Not the quality water we need for irrigating, however today you can work on that water and have reasonable water for farming, or good quality water for people. And what's the limit there? The limitation on that water direction, coming from the ocean, is energy. But that energy, on the other hand, is becoming cheaper and cheaper. Today solar panels allow you to be very competitive. So, that opens a tremendous, tremendous opportunity for a country like Chile.
Vonnie Estes:
My last question is around public and private sector. So you've worked both in the public and the private sector. What role does and should government play in technology development and adoption in ag, and then what role should the private sector play, and how does that work in Chile today?
Alvaro (Al) Eyzaguirre:
I feel very lucky, very, very blessed to have had the chance to work in the private industry first, and in the public sector later. I was able to learn, and I have been able to learn, and today I enjoy every day what I am doing, and to learn from the differences and the things that we do have in common. And I would say that overall the big challenge that is required here is to work together. The public sector has a lot to offer. Has great people, has resources, has experience, has a lot of things. And on the other hand, private sector can contribute with other elements. You put both together and you get a tremendous synergy. All the big challenges that we have when it comes to water management, when it comes to food security, we cannot do it alone. No matter how big your company, your private industry, you're not able to accomplish and fight these challenges. And on the other hand, the governments along cannot do it. So there is tremendous opportunity. That's a very optimistic and positive message. Together we can absolutely produce much more.
Vonnie Estes:
After hearing from the private sector, we will now hear from Gaston Dussaillant Venezian, from Capta Hydro, a company that designs, develops and markets innovative technologies to improve water distribute in irrigation canal networks. Gaston is a classic serial entrepreneur, and it's fascinating to hear his journey in Chile to tackle two of the biggest issues, water and labor.
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
My name is Gaston Dussaillant, I'm one of the co-founders of Capta Hydro. Capta Hydro is a water technology startup, we're dedicated to the development of internet of things solutions for surface water management. Basically what we're trying to do is to have a much more adaptable, more persisting hardware devices that allow our customers to think in hundreds and thousands of devices installed in their infrastructure. And also software that really helps them solve their water challenges.
Vonnie Estes:
What are the problems that you're trying to solve for your customers with the technology you've developed?
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
Thanks. First, it's helpful to think, we have two main customer segments. One is the surface water distribution organizations, that in California you know them as the River Districts, or Irrigation districts. On the other hand, we have any organization that uses surface water. That can be farms, agri-business, hydro power companies, utilities and distributors.
The problem that we're trying to solve for them is basically the low efficiency, precision and really low flexibility of the current surface water distribution infrastructure. Which can account for thousands of lost acre-foot per year, and nobody really knows where those losses are, and how much they are, and how to solve them.
The thing is that lots of these losses come from major problems. It's not only seepage in operation, but really that they quickly solved with IAT solutions that allow you to monitor in real time the water flows and also to control them in real time. This problem, for many years it wasn't really a problem, where we had more water and less water demand. But as you know, here in Chile, in California, because of climate change, you have increasing drought, you have much higher water demands, particularly from more permanent crops that have a better water security. There's also environmental relations that are okay because we need the rivers to have water, but all this has resulted in much higher prices for water as we have seen in California this year, and those are prices that we jeopardize the future of some of activities, especially for agriculture. So it's an important problem to solve, to try to recover these lost volumes, and I think that this is one of the most efficient ways to do it.
Vonnie Estes:
And what countries are you working in? You're in Chile, are you in other countries as well?
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
Yeah, so we are mainly in Chile. We are also working in Mexico, we have a pilot project in Baja-California, in Mexicali. Also we have plans to do really a roll out for pilots in many different places in Mexico. And also we're trying to do our first pilots in California in this irrigation system. We're supported by the Value Ventures Accelerator in Fresno State University, so through them we also have spoken with irrigation districts. I'm trying really to understand what are the specific problems in California and to adapt our solutions to offer them this year and next year, target.
Vonnie Estes:
So, when you say pilot projects, are those projects that you support and fund, or what makes a pilot project, as opposed to a paid project?
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
We understand that most of our customers know other solutions, so they will be a bit skeptic and want to know okay, what's different? Our telemetry device for surface water has a lot of differences, and one of them is that it's really easy to install, and to transport, and it's very modular. So we can send it through flight shipping, and the customer can install it basically by consulting a couple operators. So that flexibility allows us to offer these pilots in a very practical and for almost no cost for the customer. And we're willing for the first ones to do them without cost for the device, they have only to pay for the shipping. It's part of our entry to the market.
Vonnie Estes:
Yeah. So, how many projects total do you have going on in these different areas?
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
Mainly in Chile we have around 120 devices installed. They vary from the flood gate and canal gate automation, and also to telemetry devices. They have different models, some measure water height, others measure water flow directly. We also have some ground water telemetry that's more like a complementary business. But we are expecting high growth this year or next probably to reach 1,000 devices in the next couple years.
Vonnie Estes:
Turning a little bit to your background, I was reading up on you and I read that you founded a number of other companies that have been in software and mining and different industries. What got you interested in irrigation, and looking at solving problems in agriculture and water?
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
Yeah, thanks for the question, Vonnie. Really I'm 32, I've been an entrepreneur basically the last 10 years. And honestly, it was more luck that I got into water. I'm happy it was that way. I started with the software for retail, didn't really like it. It was just to make retailers richer. And then the mining was kind of like a year, but I also didn't really like the industry. I got into water really by... It was pure luck, because we started the company as a energy technology company for micro hydro power, and the idea was to do hydrokinetic turbines for artificial canals. We were two years into the business, we had some pilots, but we were talking constantly to irrigation districts, river districts, and we realized that energy generation was not their main priority. Number one, two and three was water distribution.
We started to get in to understand the problems, and we realized that one of the important solutions that could be this IOT monitoring and control devices. There were so much need, and there was this big gap between the amount of devices that were needed and the ones that were installed. Because of cost, vandalism, adaptability, a series of issues. And that's where we decided to basically pivot the company 100%, it was three years ago, into irrigation management and water management solutions.
Vonnie Estes:
One of the things I'm trying to do with these podcasts, and looking at different countries, is looking at what's the ecosystem like there and what it's like to actually start companies there. So you may not have a comparison, but was it difficult to start your company in Chile? And how did you get funding, and how did you get started?
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
I think to start wasn't that difficult, because in Chile we have lots of pre-seed subsidies, especially for innovative and technology-based companies. But what was really a challenge is once you already spend those subsidies, was to get the further funding for that initial growth, before our break even we're reaching this year. So that was a big challenge. We were lucky to have some angel investors, friends and family mainly, and also we had some debt between the partners that we were able to get. But we realized that that's not necessarily the situation of most Chilean entrepreneurs. Many get into this funding gap, they don't know angel investors, angel investing is not really such a common activity here between wealthy people. They prefer many times to invest in their own companies more than in someone else's so that's a challenge.
And also, the next stage for us now is to raise our serious hay. And really, even though we'll talk obviously with Chilean investors, we're also looking outside Chile. We'll talk with Mexican, also North American investors to see. Because what we're trying to solve is really a global problem, and obviously not limited to Chile.
Vonnie Estes:
Yeah. Are there a lot of startup companies in Chile that are focused on agriculture, or is that not a growing segment as much?
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
Yeah, it is a growing segment. In fact, there are a couple that come to mind right now, a couple that are doing quite well in California right now. One with water filtration, it's Biofitlro. Another with precision agriculture is WiseConn. Those already have done some good inroads for us that we're following behind. And also the agricultural sector in Chile has grown so much in, I would say the last 20 years. Fruit exporting is now one of the main businesses, main exporting industries in Chile. Particularly cherries, I think they're growing like 30% a year every year and sending them to China.
Vonnie Estes:
Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah.
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
It's almost a $2 billion a year business now. But all this growth has its challenges, right? One of the main challenges is probably water management, that's the big limitation to keep on growing the production. And lots of startups have tried to develop solutions at different stages of the water needs of agricultural businesses.
Vonnie Estes:
Yeah, somebody interviewed me yesterday for a podcast I was on and he asked me what I thought the two biggest challenges were. I said labor and water. And those are two things-
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
Yeah-
Vonnie Estes:
... I don't work on as much, but I think those are the two big challenges, yeah.
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
I was going to say labor as a second big challenge. It was really exacerbated this year by COVID and obviously immigration restrictions. So yeah, that's another big opportunity I think, lots of startups are focused on trying to solve and automate some jobs. And in fact it's kind of what we're doing. When we install a telemetry device, or when we install a gate automation device, really what we're doing is automating a really mundane task that a person had to go and visually look, once a day, how much water there was, and operate the gate. So everything is trending to that.
Vonnie Estes:
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. We've seen a lot of change in COVID where people didn't want to rely on technology. Even if they had technology, there were like, "Oh, I'm just going to go look." And now, since we can't move around so much, I've seen better adoption where people are actually willing to look at the data. And the data is often better, or the task is actually done better by sensors and by information. Yeah, yeah, than actually doing it yourself. So that may, of all the horrible things around COVID, that might be a good thing that comes out of it.
Gaston Dussaillant Venezian:
Yeah.
Vonnie Estes:
It was great to learn about the produce industry in Chile in this episode. Chile's public and private investment in fruit production is why we here in the U.S. are able to eat many fruits year-round. Partnerships between innovation companies, the state and venture capitalists have provided great technical advances in the country, and result in me getting to eat blueberries all year.
That's it for this episode of PMA Take on Tech. Thanks for allowing us to serve as your guide to the new world of produce and technology. Be sure to check out all our episodes at pma.com, and wherever you get your podcasts. Please subscribe, and I would love to get any comments or suggestions of what you might want me to take on. For now, stay safe, eat your fruits and vegetables and we will see you next time.
