Kilimo leverages Azure AI solutions to help farmers lower water usage, benefiting the local watershed

Latin American tech company Kilimo is on a quest to help farmers reduce their water usage. It gathers and stores massive amounts of data to predict how much each farmer should irrigate and needed a cloud solution that could keep up while also ensuring the security of its corporate partners’ sensitive information.

By using Azure, Kilimo is able to seamlessly collect and analyze meteorological data, soil moisture levels and satellite imagery, to measure water savings. It also shares detailed reports with corporate partners who are invested in local water security.

Kilimo’s co-founder and CEO Jairo Trad appreciates having a range of integrated tools anchored in Azure, and the company has started deploying additional security features as it grows its reach to more and more corporate entities.

Water is essential for human survival, and it’s also a needed resource in many industries—but our planet doesn’t have an unlimited supply. Large companies like Microsoft, who need water to keep their servers from overheating, recognize their role in protecting and replenishing freshwater resources and have made commitments to conserve and replenish water in the regions where they operate around the world. Companies like Microsoft are also teaming up with Latin American startup Kilimo to help farmers reduce their own water usage through data.

At least 70% of the water that we use as humans goes to farming, according to Jairo Trad, CEO and co-founder of Kilimo.

And unlike corporations, which are incentivized to use water efficiently because they’ll need it later, farmers are often encouraged—implicitly or explicitly—to use every drop they can.

“The farmers want to be better water stewards, but there is a lack of incentives,” Trad says. “Everyone is telling them to use as much water as they want. For example, in most of the US, if you don’t use the water allocated, you lose it.”

This led Kilimo to bring farmers and companies together around a shared goal of trying to make sure there’s more water available for everyone. Kilimo uses data and AI to help farmers irrigate efficiently, reducing water use and generating measurable volumetric water benefits for companies, creating shared value with local farmers. The partner companies achieve their sustainability goals and get detailed reports about the local projects they’ve helped and the water savings enabled through the collaboration.

“The farmers want to be better water stewards, but there is a lack of incentives. Everyone is telling them to use as much water as they want. For example, in most of the U.S., if you don’t use the water allocated, you lose it.”

Jairo Trad, CEO and Co-founder, Kilimo

The power of data

Kilimo’s first project of this kind was actually a partnership with Microsoft in 2022 in the Maipo Basin of Chile, one of the most stressed watersheds in the world. The company’s relationship with Microsoft has since continued in other ways: Kilimo uses Azure to collect and analyze meteorological data, soil moisture levels, and satellite imagery. Then, Kilimo uses AI and machine learning to tell farmers precisely how much they need to irrigate, so they can hit the sweet spot of quality produce with maximum water savings. Kilimo is able to communicate among its various resources securely using Azure Virtual Network. Trad stresses that having integrated tools available through Azure has been very valuable for Kilimo.

Trad says much of the information Kilimo needs to analyze and advise is gleaned from satellites. For example, he says Kilimo can understand how much irrigation a farmer has applied in the past three years without ever interacting with the farm. That level of hands-off information gathering is transformative, given the risks associated with leaving a hardware device on a rural farm, where weather and animals can render it unusable.

When it comes to corporate partnerships, Kilimo has refined its reporting dashboard to include not only statistics, but also compelling stories that help companies understand the personal-level impact they’re having. This helps them in turn report that progress to their employees and other stakeholders. And, with Azure as one of the clouds supporting Kilimo’s efforts, the company can take advantage of security features, including Azure Key Vault, to protect sensitive data about sustainability goals that it manages on behalf of its corporate partners.

“This is going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I don’t think we’re going to be able to find and create another company where all these stakeholders win at the same time.”

Jairo Trad, CEO and Co-founder, Kilimo

A win-win-win-win solution

Trad understands the unique privilege and responsibility his organization has in helping to protect one of the world’s most valuable resources. He says that he and the other cofounders of Kilimo understood that technology is a “superpower,” and they were intent on using that superpower to have a “profound impact.”

So far, that impact has been profound, and it’s increasing every day. Kilimo is currently working on projects in 15 watersheds across Latin America and just signed its first contract in the United States. The company is proud to have created a model that benefits so many different players; Corporate partners get improved water security and can continue operations, Kilimo grows as a company, farmers get financial incentives, and the environment and community get improved weather situations such as less drought.

“This is going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Trad says. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to find and create another company where all these stakeholders win at the same time.”

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