The Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Center (MaGIC) and Deloitte are working together to help bolster the agriculture sector towards rapidly adopting cutting-edge technologies, including multiple drone use cases and artificial intelligence (AI), to thwart the threat of a global food crisis. With the world’s increasing population disrupting agriculture supply chains, aggravated further by the COVID-19 pandemic, MaGIC and Deloitte have identified not only an increased need to address challenges in the food security space, but also opportunities for tech solution providers to develop new and unique innovations that can be adopted by the agriculture industry.

This year, the two institutions collaborated on a roundtable discussion called the Agriculture/Agritech Roundtable and a thought leadership paper titled the “Emerging Tech & Innovation in Malaysia’s Agricultural Landscape” to highlight technological solutions for pressing agriculture issues that have the potential to impact millions of lives. The roundtable initiative seeks to highlight the urgency of solving problems in the agriculture space and the need to have all hands on deck — particularly tech companies that already possess the tools needed to help bolster and embolden food security.

Khalid Yashaiya, Acting CEO of MaGIC, said that without intervention from new innovations, the world will soon face a food security crisis of unprecedented scale. Rural communities tied to the agriculture sector are especially fragile, having already suffered from loss of income and livelihood during the pandemic.

“The agriculture sector has been impacted by high market demand, higher production costs due to their dependence on imported goods, declining productivity and revenue, and other challenges which have led to losses in earnings. Despite this, the agriculture sector has a high potential of becoming a major contributor to the increase in shared prosperity and food resources to the world’s 9.7 billion population by 2050,” he added.

Malaysia and Agritech Solutions

Khalid highlighted that as it is, Malaysia is abound with solutions anchored on looming issues in agriculture. The country is not lacking when it comes to innovators, from manufacturers of agriculture drones to developers of solutions that enable farmers to sort high quality vegetables, ready to take on the challenges faced by the sector.

“This is why it is crucial for the government and its agencies to encourage and facilitate this growth,” he said, adding that MaGIC empowers innovative startups by developing a vibrant and sustainable entrepreneurship ecosystem in Malaysia and accelerating their commercialisation journeys.

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Justin Ong, Executive Director of Deloitte Southeast Asia and Innovation Leader of Deloitte Malaysia, further said that today’s Industry 4.0 offered the perfect opportunity for agriculture players to adopt mature technologies that boost productivity and efficiency. Startups, being the source of new technologies, will be the locomotive of change.

“The agriculture industry is traditionally labour-intensive. This gives rise to many opportunities for innovative solutions and digitalisation. With their outside-the-box thinking, unconventional way and readiness to adopt new technology and business models, startups disrupt the industry with ideas that close the gap and increase productivity,” he said.

What’s sprouting in Malaysia?

Drones, Internet of Things (IoT), big data analytics, and online sales platforms have emerged as crucial innovations for agriculture. Malaysia already has homegrown startups focused on deploying those technologies, as these three startups exemplify.

Braintree Technologies

Braintree Technologies is a local startup that offers drone-as-a-service for plantation mapping, evaluation, design, and planning. The drones run on AI-powered computer vision algorithms that increase precision and automation leading to optimal yield and cost-efficiencies.

“We build agriculture robots at Braintree Technologies. Right now, we are focusing our solutions for the oil palm & chilli industries. We are building chilli-picking robots and pest-control robots.  We offer our solution as Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS) and our clients pay us per hectare of the job done by the robots,” said Arif Makhdzir, Founder and CEO of Braintree Technologies.

Additionally, the increasing use of technology can make the sector more interesting to high-skilled youth. “My plan is to see a new generation of farmers who are less than 40 years old and they earn lucrative income by just operating their automated farm from anywhere in the world from their phone,” he said.

Makhdzir finds that MaGIC’s roundtable initiative is a great platform to hear the perspectives of different parties from varied backgrounds like big plantations, startups, and government, with the hopes of turning the discussion outcomes of the discussion into actual National Agrofood Policy. “I think it benefits us to have the point of view from varied backgrounds and if we can collaborate to create a better ecosystem,“ he concluded.

Langit Collective

Innovations are equally necessary on the consumer side. Langit Collective tackles challenges related to market access by connecting indigenous rural farming communities with consumers via online sales platforms. 

Lilian Chen, Co-Founder and CEO of Langit Collective, said that the startup aimed to “create an alternative economic model for rural indigenous communities by revaluing their existing agriculture produce”.

Langit Collective further empowered farmers through data collection and food chain transparency. The Food Prints Initiative is the startup’s brainchild to achieve food integrity and enable consumers to learn more about the source of their rice. “With the scanning of a unique QR code, consumers will be able to get access to the overview information of where, and who farmed the packet of rice they purchased,” she noted.

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Chen expressed that MaGIC’s roundtable is a great attempt to bring all the different stakeholders involved in agriculture to further understand each other’s challenges in the industry. She hopes that this would lead the way to a more holistic approach in agriculture.

“In our constant pursuit in improving methodology, precision, and the need to control the environment to produce food or commodities, we become more siloed and our focus skewed only towards solving food security issues,” she said. “I hope there is more awareness about regenerative agriculture that focuses on rebuilding ecosystems, biodiversity that regenerates the soil (carbon sequestration) whilst producing food.”

Initiatives like this could be a great step for a more collaborative environment that brings better awareness and better solutions, not just to food security issues but other related issues as well. “It can be a powerful tool to solve environmental problems whilst solving food security issues,” Chen concluded.

Planting seeds for the future

Braintree and Langit Collective are two of the country’s budding startups whose innovations can help revolutionise the agriculture space. With these startups leading the charge and supported by reputable institutions like MaGIC, the country can inspire stronger and more collaborative efforts to help foster a more sustainable food system.

Collaboration and fostering a healthy ecosystem for innovations are fundamental for future developments in agritech. According to Justin, coopetition, or the collaboration between competing businesses, which in this case are corporates and startups, will lead to positive outcomes that will reshape the industry.

“While it is natural for businesses to be wary of new entrants in the market, we believe that many opportunities are there to be realised if traditional players work together with startups,” he pointed out.

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The government continues to play a key role by encouraging startups to hatch innovations in the market. The Malaysian government has created the National Technology & Innovation Sandbox (NTIS) to give space for startups and technology companies to test run their solutions. Khalid mentioned that the sandbox in agritech would bring about insightful case studies that become benchmarks on how the government could form regulations that promote innovations. 

“NTIS ensures that Malaysia doesn’t just adopt but create and commercialise solutions using emerging and advanced technologies. It moves products along the technology readiness tranches in an expedient manner, from ideas to invention and implementation — and onward to commercialisation” he added, emphasising the role of agriculture, food, and water as key socio-economic sectors.

With an agritech industry strengthened by the support of a startup ecosystem whose unique innovations in technology can help yield better and more efficient food production, Malaysia and the rest of the world can look forward to a more bountiful future.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by MaGIC

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