How AI is helping to detect pests and diseases with Valeria Kogan

Valeria Kogan is founder and CEO of Fermata – a data science company developing computer vision solutions for both controlled environment agriculture and outdoor.

With a background in biotech, Valeria saw an opportunity in the market to bring the knowledge from the medical space to agriculture. Meeting with friends of friends who were tomato producers, Valeria learnt about the problems they face, and how they deal with them, and knew there was knowledge from the medical space which could lend itself to agriculture.

Valeria was recognized as one of Forbes' “30 Under 30” in 2022 but she says “it doesn’t feel like an incredible achievement” because it sets a threshold for when you have to achieve something, or figure everything out. Instead, Valeria says the focus should be on the work and not when it’s achieved.

Fermata recently won an innovation award at Fruit Logistica for Croptimus™ and its advanced image analysis, which works to transform greenhouse pest and disease detection. The technology automatically detects pests and diseases, aiming to reduce scouting time and crop losses. Valeria explains growers install the cameras and then can “forget about them”.

Valeria explains that they often come across those who are sceptical because the technology is “replacing the eyes” and so they have to prove themselves. But she explains that the proof is in the results, with the technology often identifying diseases either before the growers do, or identifying diseases the growers miss.

Looking at the future and how the technology might be used, Valeria says they think it could help distinguishing between other insects in the glasshouse to track the pollinator population, as well as utilising environmental data to better analyse the data they are currently receiving.

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