Cropin and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center Increase Crop Yields by 30% for 8,000 Farmers through Climate Resilience Initiative

The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) was founded in 1986 with a mission to build safer communities and sustainable development through disaster risk reduction. Based in Thailand, the organization has implemented various projects and programs, partnering with local governments and the private sector to improve the livelihoods of citizens across Asia.

The Program for Asia Resilience to Climate Change, funded by the UK's Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office and administered by the World Bank, provided ADPC with US$3.5 million to identify and pilot innovations to reduce climate risk and build resilience in vulnerable communities. As part of its Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CARE) initiative, ADPC launched the TechEmerge Resilience India Challenge in 2020, in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation, to leverage private-sector expertise and disruptive technologies for resilience. In 2021, ADPC launched the Climate Innovation Challenge to crowdsource innovative technology solutions for resilience in South Asia. In 2023, iCARE's third phase was launched to pilot new innovations and scale up previously tested solutions. The initiative also sought private-sector solutions to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka leverage technology to improve yields on their 1-hectare plots.

To help farmers digitize their plots, ADPC selected Cropin as a project leader. Cropin has worked with governments, NGOs, and private enterprises in over 100 countries to solve complex problems in the agriculture value chain.

Cropin began by implementing its CropinGrow (SmartFarm Plus) farm digitization solution to maximize per-acre value for more than 3,200 farmers in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Cropin Grow stores details logged by local Cropin agronomists, including which crops are grown on participating farms and how much land is under cultivation. Once the plots were digitized and geotagged, Cropin Grow’s intelligence module used proprietary AI and ML models built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) using Amazon SageMaker, along with satellite images and data indexes such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, to remotely ascertain the health of crops across the digitized farms. The platform integrates with global weather data sources to obtain hyperlocal forecasts and includes a proprietary disease early warning system that predicts disease infestation probability in crops based on weather conditions. The solution was deployed during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when one of the participating countries faced severe flooding. This project supported farmers by providing valuable insights to enhance their preparedness and understanding of field conditions even when they were away from their fields.

In addition, Cropin formulates curated, climate-smart advisories for each crop variety and growth stage using Cropin Intelligence and automatically sends them to farmers. Farmers receive alerts 7‒12 days ahead of potential weather events, plus regular recommendations for optimizing crop health. Cropin uses Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) to send advisories directly to farmers, and the Cropin Connect (AcreSquare) app to communicate with lead farmers and smartphone-equipped farmers. Cropin Intelligence also relies on Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) for PostgreSQL to ensure its databases are secure and highly available, and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for scalable storage. The iCARE team at ADPC says, “By engaging digital innovators such as Cropin with a strong presence on the ground and the tools and technology to reach communities at the grassroots level, we’re able to realize our mission more effectively.”

During the 15-month project, farmers adopted sustainable agriculture practices such as utilizing the ideal sowing window; 92 percent reported being satisfied with the services and training provided by Cropin. Timely notifications and data insights reduced crop loss by 23 percent and increased yields by 30 percent compared to previous seasons. Aditya Shah, global director of strategic partnerships at Cropin, explains, “Through digital interventions with Cropin solutions, we empowered participating farmers to grow more and grow better. The Cropin Grow platform also raises awareness of climate change and the need to adopt climate-resilient practices.”  

The success of the project led to Cropin's selection for the third phase, which focuses on scaling up the implementation of innovative solutions. As of mid-2024, Cropin had onboarded a total of 8,000 farmers. The iCARE team comments, “Cropin was selected as it could support our scaling up innovation and its solution addresses a significant need of farmers. Cropin’s tools have been tested and proven to bring change and real results without requiring major customization, meaning we can test them in other South Asian countries facing similar problems.”

Both Cropin and ADPC recognize that revising policies at the national and sub-national levels to create lasting change takes time. However, the success of these projects demonstrates the viability of using technology and remote sensing-based predictive intelligence to boost crop yields, promote resource efficiency, and ultimately increase farmers' revenue. Mohit Pande, chief business officer at Cropin, concludes, “Smallholder farmers produce about a third of the world’s agriculture, yet they're spending US$368 billion of their own income annually to adapt to climate change—a huge burden for already-struggling communities. By embracing technology, ADPC empowers these vulnerable farmers and makes them resilient, thereby supporting global food systems. At Cropin, we are likewise committed to driving innovations to ensure that agriculture can withstand and thrive amid today's challenges.”