One way that AI is transforming family farms

Some of Japan's innovations are going to have a much bigger impact outside of Japan. Like most startups, most AgTech startups sensibly tend to focus on their own markets. While this makes things easier at first, it tends to overlook the huge challenges -- and potentially huge profits -- that exist in the developing world. Today we talk with Shunsuke Tsuboi of Sagri, and he explains how Sagri started life as a satellite -imaging startup focused on incremental innovation in Japan, but then quickly transformed itself into a disruptive FinTech startup serving India and Southeast Asia. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes The truth about university startup support in Japan Why India is a better target for this Japanese startup Why selling to family farms is harder than selling to industrial farms Why sustainable business models are hard for agriculture startups The challenges for market entry in any agriculture startup Three reasons there are so few agriculture startups in Japan Why most Japanese VCs don't invest in AgTech What Japanese universities can do to improve creativity Links from the Founder Everything you ever wanted to know about Sagri Friend Shun on Facebook TV Interview about Sagri. (Japanese) Nikkei interview with Shun  (Japanese) Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan's most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Today, we're going to about agricultural startups in Japan.  You know, it's interesting, with Japan's high food prices, the financial support for farmers, and the strong system of university agricultural research, I've always been a bit surprised that we don't see more AgTech startups in Japan.  Well, today's conversation goes a long way to explaining exactly why that is, it's both fascinating and a little frustrating.  Today we sit down with Shunsuke Tsuboi of Sagri, who is using satellite imaging and AI to help small-scale farmers, some in Japan but mostly in the developing world. Shunsuke explains the challenges of launching a startup from universities without specific startup support, why going global often has nothing to do with the US or Europe, and why the world is a better place when there are tens of millions of small family farms in it and why those are worth preserving.  But you know, Shunsuke tells that story much better than I can, so let's get right to the interview. Interview Tim: I'm sitting here with Shun Tsuboi of Sagri, who is using satellites and artificial intelligence to solve agricultural problems. Thanks for joining us today. Shun: Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you for this time. Tim: It's great to have you, and I mean, agriculture tech, AgTech is something that's it's interesting in Japan, and people don't talk about it enough, so I'm really glad you're on the show. So can you explain a little bit more about what Sagri does, what is the service you're offering? Shun: Sagri company is based in Japan and India. So we are using satellite data to checking the each of the farmland and also the food of farmers we get using satellite data for smartphone, such as when is the best harvesting time and also which is a good soil situation, we can check it. Tim: The soil analysis, is that done by satellite or do you have people on the ground checking? Shun: They're using satellite, yes. Tim: Really? Shun: Yeah, along the 1,000 farmland, checking just 10 farmland detail, we can spreading the satellite information. Tim: So from satellite imaging, you can tell soil composition, you can tell farmers when the ideal time to apply pesticides, when to harvest. How do your customers interact with this? Is there a smartphone app? How does it work? Shun: So using satellite data checking through the application, they can connect it that mechanical, so this machine is automatically do that.