An AgriTech start-up from Belarus demonstrates that societal andeconomic benefits of Copernicus go beyond the borders of theEuropean Union

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OneSoil machine learning algorithms can distinguish among 20 crop types with high accuracy,according to the start-up founders. Credit: OneSoil

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OneSoil has been dubbed “a potential disrupter” of our approach to agricultural andenvironmental management by Hervé Pillaud, a European influencer in the field of AgriTechand one of the promoters of La Ferme Digitale, the digital farm, a French AgriTech start-upsupport structure. OneSoil is a platform developed by a Belarusian start-up which usesCopernicus Sentinel data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support the actors of agriculture 4.0– from farmers to businesses and governments. So, what’s the deal?

It is not too surprising that a “farming by satellite” tool such as OneSoil originated in Belarus asagriculture is an important economic sector in the country. OneSoil is a precision farming platformwhich monitors fields according to criteria crucial for efficient and fruitful agricultural activities. It candetect and mark field boundaries, detect crop types, determine required amounts of fertilisers, showweather forecasts, etc. As a source of satellite imagery, it relies exclusively on Copernicus Sentinel-1and Sentinel-2 data which it processes with sophisticated AI algorithms for user-friendly results.

More specifically, OneSoil uses Copernicus Sentinel-2 multispectral images to automaticallydetermine the crop type that grows in any given field. Then, to reduce uncertainty, it uses Sentinel-1radar satellite images. This enables OneSoil to spot 20 types of crop with, according to its estimates,high accuracy. The OneSoil technologies can potentially determine the sowing date and the stage ofplant development. However, to improve its accuracy, the model needs in situ data sets with highquality data, which are collected with help of the platform users. For instance, this feature would helpfarmers choose the best time for applying fertilisers and pesticides.

OneSoil offers all the platform functions free of charge all over the world, and it will stay free-to-usefor farmers. The service currently covers Europe and the USA, but the company already envisagesglobal coverage in 2020!

OneSoil says:

We’re not using Sentinel-1 data in the global pipeline as it represents a large amount of dataand thus requires more complex pre-processing operations. However, it is very useful forremoving uncertainties in some crop type identification processes.

La plateforme qui pourrait bien disrupter l’agriculture et l’approche environnementale estbiélorusse ! @onesoilplatform offre en open source tout ce dont l’agriculture a besoin : desestimations macro à l’accompagnement des agriculteurs en passant par le contrôle despratiques. https://t.co/hwpiO0fILc

— PILLAUD Hervé (@Herve_Pillaud) January 10, 2019

The platform that could well disrupt agriculture and the environmental approach is Belarusian!

@onesoilplatform offers in open source all that agriculture needs: from macro estimates to supportingfarmers with best practices and control of practices.

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OneSoil services are enriched with interactive functionalities such as attaching notes with relevantinformation about fields:

Spotted some nasty parasites in your wheat field? – leave a note!Lucky to harvest particularly juicy grapes in a specific field area? – leave a note!

In addition, considering that the platform maps the fields automatically, users can contribute to theprecision of the service by refining the automatically detected borders or identified crop typesmanually.

The platform applies Machine Learning, which constantly improves the service as more data andfeedback is collected. Considering that a mind-boggling 376,835,301 hectares of fields acrossEurope and the USA have already been analysed and catalogued, the system has reached aremarkable level of maturity.

OneSoil says:

To detect fields all over the world, we need to solve two main Machine Learning problems.The first one includes training a model in an efficient way. The second problem is morecomplex – it entails developing a cloud pipeline prediction (inference) of the model for largeareas. Training a model in the cloud (x2 Graphics Processing Units (GPU) k80 withTensorflow/Keras and multi-GPU training, for those who are in the know) takes around oneday. It takes us approximately 1-2 days to predict fields in Europe and the USA for a 3 year-period.

OneSoil is focused on building a product that “brings real value to end users”. Currently, the team isplanning to delineate all the fields in the world as well as to complete the development of a yieldprediction function for each field type. Additionally, in the future, the team plans to launch OneSoilanalytics to create and provide reports for businesses such as banks, traders, insurance companies,advisers, machinery manufacturers, food processing companies as well as seed, fertilisers and cropprotection dealers. The data from OneSoil could also be of use to state and non-profit internationalagencies.

Users of OneSoil

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A corn field spotted: OneSoil in action. Credit: OneSoil

OneSoil has several types of users: farm owners, farm employees, agronomists, researchers,technical specialists/machinery operators and consultants/advisers.

For instance, the platform assists farmers in complying with European and national regulations. ABelgian farmer, agronomist by education, who is currently running a family farm, has been usingOneSoil for 5 months. “I was looking for a way to see the vegetation index in a clear way” – he toldthe team. Right now, he is mostly interested in an efficient fertiliser solution because there are area-specific regulations that apply to his farm. Thus, he has chosen the OneSoil variable rate fertiliserapplication to control his inputs.

OneSoil heavily relies on user feedback, which ultimately helps the team to define how the servicewill develop and to improve the accuracy of the AI crop type engine.

OneSoil users also use the platform to keep track of their field’s health. A farmer from Minnesota(USA) uses the OneSoil Scouting Android app to check the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI), an information which is derived from Copermicus Sentinel-2 free and open imagery, of hisfields and he uses in-app notes to mark problems such as parasites, weeds and crop diseases.

The story of creating OneSoil

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People of OneSoil. Credit: OneSoil

OneSoil founders Usevalad Genin and Slava Mazai met in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, at theBelagro exhibition, an annual agricultural event for professionals, in 2014. Both were looking for anew way to apply their skills. Slava, a programmer, had been fond of aerial drone photography forseveral years. Usevalad, a GIS expert, worked in the agricultural sector. As a result of this meeting,Usevalad and Slava started working for farmers – Slava would take pictures from a drone andUsevalad would make maps for the differentiated application of fertilisers based on the analysis. Thedemand for the service was growing, and it became clear that processing this information requiredautomation, and accordingly, extension of their know-how.

In 2016, Sasha Yakovlev, a designer and an old friend of Slava, who lived in Argentina at that time,came to Belarus for his summer holidays. The friends took a kayaking trip, during which Slavaexplained an idea they had worked on with Usevalad, and Sasha was so impressed that he began tohelp the guys remotely, becoming the third founder of OneSoil. Soon enough, he packed upeverything and came back to Belarus together with his family. Now, Sasha is Head of Product atOneSoil.

In fact, the team worked without a salary during 2015 and 2016. This thankfully changed after thenext crucial meeting, which happened at another event, an AI Hackathon. There, Slava and Usevaladmet Yury Melnichek, the co-founder of the investment company Bulba Ventures. The OneSoil teampresented the technology that enabled weed identification using drone images. Yury saw great

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potential in the product and wanted to invest in the start-up, but proposed they switch to the analysisof satellite images and to build a free web-platform for precision farming.

OneSoil says:

We have received $500,000 as pre-seed funding from Haxus, Bulba Ventures and LeonidLozner (business angel investor and co-founder of the EPAM software company). Founders ofHaxus and Bulba Ventures are known for funding start-ups acquired by Google (AIMATTER)and Facebook (MSQRD).

Today, the OneSoil team consists of 15 people, and it is the only start-up in Belarus that is involved inboth Space and AgriTech industries!

Working with Copernicus

Considering the service is free for farmers all over the world, for OneSoil it was of the utmostimportance to have access to open public data to predict field borders, crops and other information.Landsat, Modis and Copernicus were identified as the three candidates of data sources for OneSoil.Copernicus won this race mainly thanks to three decisive advantages. Firstly, Copernicus offers asignificantly higher spatial resolution: 10 m vs. 30 m for Landsat, thus enabling analysis at field level.Secondly, use of its data is completely free, and finally Copernicus offers more frequent data updatesby having two identical satellites working on opposite sides of the orbit. As such the Sentinel-1mission achieves its global coverage in just six days while Sentinel-2 has a revisit time of 2-5 daysdepending on the latitude.

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Crop fields in Europe: OneSoil in action. The service covers Europe and the USA. Canada should becovered soon, while global coverage is expected for 2020. Credit: OneSoil

OneSoil says:

To build the map, we used images acquired by the Sentinel-2 satellites of the EuropeanUnion's Copernicus programme. A total of 250 Tb of data was processed, covering Europeand the USA. We pre-processed the images by removing the clouds, shadows and snow. Wethen compressed the data down to 50 Tb. In a quick calculation, approximately 140Tb of rawdata (we used float32 data at the inference stage) was passed through the GPU. Followingthis, we searched for field boundaries and classified cultures with our Machine Learningalgorithms. This produced approximately 250Gb of vector maps with field geometries andcultures..

“The European Union's Copernicus programme allows many space-based start-ups to take big stepsforward. Thanks to the free and open data provided by Copernicus Sentinel-1 and -2 satellitemissions, farmers and other users have an opportunity to receive fresh and valuable data. It’s alsogreat that Copernicus organises various events where people may demonstrate their projects as wellas find like-minded people and partners” – says Slava Mazai, the CEO of OneSoil.

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The OneSoil team going in situ. Credit: OneSoil

You can learn more about OneSoil at https://onesoil.ai/.

Disclaimer: the European Commission does not endorse any specificcommercial enterprise.

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