 Thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the Private Property Farming Podcast. My name is Mbali Nwokor, your host every Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m., right here on the Private Property Channel. This is the Farming Podcast where we discuss all your farming needs, bring you our local experts, farmers, entrepreneurs, agripreneurs, whatever you decide to call them. This is where we get to interview them, get to know their businesses, understand their business models, who they're supplying to, the challenges that they face, the opportunities that they've seen in the industry, and more so the people that they're partnering with to ensure that the agriculture industry grows and remains sustainable. Therefore, today we've got an exciting guest, an agripreneur as well, but his business offers a range of different services and products in very, very key sectors. But then we will hone in into the agriculture sector and understand a little bit more on what the company does and their solution in the agri space. And as always, if you have any questions for our guest this evening, please feel free to comment. We love engaging with you live on the show and especially when the guest is on the show because they get to unpack your questions in a technical view if needs be or maybe just give some advice based on the challenges or opportunities that you are currently seeking. Like, share, comment, and also subscribe to our channel because we do have other podcasts on the Private Property YouTube channel where you could get a whole load of content directly from your screen, from your laptop, from your phone, wherever you'll be logging or watching on the Private Property YouTube channel. Definitely, please support the farming podcast as well if you definitely enjoy listening to this podcast. Our guest this evening is Priyash Ramadhin who is the co-founder of The Awareness Company. I've been fortunate to know him for about a few years now and yeah, the business is growing and I know they've reached so many milestones since we met about three years ago if I remember correctly. And so let's bring him on to the show. Priyash, thank you so much for your time this evening. How are you doing? Good evening, Mbali. It's great to be here and I'm doing great this evening. You know, it's a warm evening which is always great and I'm feeling good and thanks for having us. Awesome, it's a pleasure. We could not have you on to the show because again, you're just one of those companies that are making moves in the agri industry and have been around for some time now but I think what's exciting is that you are an agritech company or a technology company rather and providing a range of services but just maybe break it down to us. What does The Awareness Company do? And you are the co-founder so what do you do in the company and who are your other partners and their roles? Perfect, thanks so much Mbali. So let me start off with what The Awareness Company does and who we are. Essentially The Awareness Company helps people get better at what they do and that's the core of what we're doing. You know, whether you're a farmer an agricultural organization an agri service provider working in the mining industry working in the security industry or a park ranger we help people get better at what they do and we do that by doing three things. It's digital intelligence, it's data storytelling and we provide the fastest insights on the planet. That's what we really about. Right, that sounds very high-tech and very high level maybe break it down to us, digital intelligence you know give us just break it down so that we understand the layman's term what that means. 100% so let's look where we're talking agri today for the farmer. We help them digitize their farms. That means bringing in digital technologies into their farming operations helping them understand how to get more efficient helping them to optimize their operations make better use of the resources and actually what we fundamentally doing is again helping them be better farmers be better at what they do using technology which is you know there's all the buzz about technology and all the different industries and we want to bring that into the agricultural space and that's what we're working towards and that's what we've been doing over the past few years. Yeah, so you know a farmer could be listening Priyash and says you know I've got a water dam in my farm or Jojo tanks I'm using normal drip irrigation which I am saving water by virtue of just using drip irrigation I'm farming under cover or under protected or shade net you know and I've pretty much got a good system going what other forms of technology would I need to be more efficient? 100% so think about it this way when you want to scale that operations and what's the key differentiator for the farmer how are they going to compete in the market technology we view as being that force multiplier for them whether they have a Jojo tank and they're monitoring that manatee are they driving out distances to check the levels we can automate that and say okay now you can just check it out on your phone as a simple example do you keep track of all your resources and all your people and all the jobs that you have within the farm can we automate your soil moisture and your soil analysis and it's all of those type of things and again it's bringing all those technological buzzwords that's happening AI and IoT internet of things and all of that now the farmer doesn't have time to go and investigate and research and analyze it's all about the data that we can then produce for that farm when you take that data you start making data-driven decisions and when that happens you reduce your administrative burden you get this piece of mind and then you spend time on farming not on all the other stuff and that technology what we view is gonna just help them get better help them scale help them be more competitive in the market and give them that differentiation that is you know that they need yeah it sounds like there's so many plug points here you know that would be required on the farm you know from the Jojo tank to the water dam to maybe my pack house and so forth and I heard you say you know digitize or automate your soil moisture etc it sounds like there's so many plug points like how do you bring all of that together because I suppose a farmer who's used to a certain system in a certain way of working season after season they get quite comfortable in that and they don't want to break that chain because you know it takes quite a while as a farmer to get into a groove where you're working alongside nature quite well where you're harvesting a good crop at every season or maybe raising a good herd at every season and so you know how do you then incorporate technologies to farmers who have got a good system growing and are creating employment and now the awareness company comes onto my farm and is putting so many different touch points and how do I manage all of this and understand what this technology would be reporting to me at the end of the day 100% I love the question and this goes back to the name of our product you know a product is called Hydra Holistic Agriculture and it's holistic in many senses so on a farm there's so many different components whether you're a livestock farmer or a crop farmer or mixed farmer or you're an agricultural organization with you know big different operations pack house like you mentioned you know scouting requirements you need to report to different stakeholders now there's a lot and we understand that but the holisticness of that doesn't mean you have to start with big bang with technology and that's one of the mistakes you identify what's your current pains on the farm so which is you know the one thing that's bothering you which is the one area you want to optimize and make better and that's how we start and then we grow the solution so our approach to providing technology isn't this big bang approach you start small and you build it up and you build around the requirement of the farmer because at the end of the day Hydra our technology exists for the farmer for the agricultural organization so it must work for them it's not something you know we want to push down it's here here's a solution to help you get better and we help farmers scale so if a farmer has one farmer what if they want to do two locations or three or want to scale out then how do they manage that and this type of technology that we're talking about that you know runs all the data that's really what it's about getting to that data-driven decisions getting them to optimize and getting them to just you know do different things with technology there's different possibilities that come in once you deploy it so that's really what you know the fundamentals of it is so it's the awareness company and you have a product called Hydra which is essentially what the farmers would be buying from you is that correct 100% yes and that's so Hydra is our product and we sell it as a service but we also don't just drop products or software into the hands of farmers the you know unlike our other tech solutions that we've seen we walk the digitization journey with you with the farmer and this is critical and we know how it's been you know in the industry you know there's a lot of solutions farmers have been burned by technology so you've got to help and you've got to walk that journey and when you do that then you can actually provide the right solutions to the farmer or agri organizations right and I'm loving what you're saying providing the right solutions to the farmer when you guys develop Hydra you know which type of approach did you take did you just think okay maybe farmers are going through X and Y challenges based on what you've heard based on what you've read and then decided to develop a product or did you visit a couple of farms in different geographic regions and identified a common thread with those farmers to be able to develop Hydra which approach did you take first and when bringing Hydra to the fore or to the farmers how was that reception from the farmers like 100% so I'm going to take a long approach I love the question so this actually starts off like as to why we created the company to actually answer the question and our background so you know previously we worked with defense and security and conservation previously anti-rhinopoaching campaigns in our previous lives and that gave us the idea to create a company to create our own technology to serve different types of markets and the team as you know there's Estelle and Shazia who I didn't speak about earlier when we thought about this we were like okay let's create this technology that applies into different markets but that have an interlink into them so when we looked at agriculture how it started off Estelle and the company the co-founder as well she's a plant crazy person and you know she loves plants she plants everything and you know there was like also part of our starting point you know how do we get into the agriculture sector so when we first deployed into a farm there was when you know all the light started you know going out and you got to be firm believers of you got to get your hands dirty you got to go out there you got to go into the farm you got to roll in the dirt and you got to see what it's like and you know the first time you take a piece of technology and you're out in the sun then things start clicking when you're speaking to the farmer in the field so that's how it started then we deployed a few pilot projects and then we learned some really cool lessons and you know and some things you can't learn in the office or on your PC and then that's sort of how we started and then we started deploying on a few other farms learning more lessons then we started getting involved with agricultural organizations and deploying different types of solutions thereby achieving you know this holisticness that we speak about so the solution then is for the value chain from farmer to agri-organization and we're working on others as well so that's you know that's how we got to where we are at the moment right and so give me a brief case study right on how a farmer has been able to use Hydra and see its effectiveness on their farm maybe we could go back to an example I remember when we met in the early days you showed me a demo of a livestock farmer I can't remember where she was based I remember she was particularly far away and you showed me of how her cattle move etc so maybe if you could just break that down for us before she used Hydra and after she during and after she used Hydra so that everybody at home can pretty much understand what your offering is you know because some people may still get lost in translation we always hear about agri-tech sustainable solutions internet of things but just in the basic examples maybe if you could just refer to that demo from a conversational point of view if you could refer to that demo and how that farmer was able to benefit from using Hydra Perfect awesome Mariana I'm so glad you remember that demo you know there's a few years back three billion times and yeah so I mean yeah a big shout out to that farmer her name is Dalyan her farm is in Delphan in Portia Stream and we deployed a few solutions that's still a Hydra user which is fantastic so two aspects to that we deployed the solutions from you know one a farm security perspective and also what we call farm awareness so digitizing a cattle understanding where they're moving from a security perspective so it's very simple the solution you know we put GPS colors on some of the cattle that allowed her to monitor them in real time but also it has that she's also a stud breeder a stud farmer which means she breeds the cattle as well and our current operations were completely paper based it was paper based and a few spreadsheets that were being managed and we have completely digitized that and when I say digitized that it's all either on your phone or on your laptop and everything is structured and all her data and history is completely there and you know now it's not a case of you know papers and she can export from Hydra and submit to compliance and it's things like that that just makes people's lives easier because it's all digitized now and Hydra is again I know I repeat this you know helps them be better helps them reduce their admin and one lesson I can give you from that form which is a true story and I promise you we deployed this on there and you know one of the cattle so the IoT network you know there's some cables running from the power supply to there and one of the cattle walked up the mountain and put the one cable that was supplying the power to the IoT network how that cattle knew it was that one but this is a true story and then the tracking stopped working and this is one example of this is reality, these are farms you know things happen differently but you know from a case study that is one example and then we have other examples from digitizing you know citrus operations which is different types of farming so again it's the holistic nature and that's what makes us different in the agri-tech space you know our solution is for livestock farmers for crop farmers for citrus organizations for food farming for agri-service providers we're trying to piece all of it together and interlink everything yeah you know Priyaj like I'm still gonna go back to that time you did that demo and I think some other critical important critical points that you're not even mentioning yet and I think that's the wow factor of Hydra and pretty much what got me hooked was still sticking to that female farmer and allow me if you may I'm still sticking to that female farmer and her case study is that I remember you did say that you put a monitoring tracking system on the cattle's neck and as they go out in graze I think you know the herder will open the farm gate the cattle go out in graze in various areas and she had different dams or water areas water resources yeah and in the Hydra system you could see that in real time because I remember seeing many many dots you know on the system and you were saying this is where currently the cattle are grazing and what you can then do is that as a farmer see which areas or spots your cattle likes to graze and you know as a farmer you could just drive to that specific area and see what about that area is so attractive for the animals you know it may be a specific type of grass that is growing there that is making them eat better etc and I also remember you explaining as a simple concept to say like you know how to spot if the cattle is sick I think that's if where all the cattle disperse from the sick one and as a livestock farmer you could see in real time using Hydra that there's a problem here you know all the cattle are not interacting with this cat with this specific cow for example maybe just elaborate further on that yeah no and I'm so glad you remember the detail of that so you know when you see data from a farm in real time it allows different possibilities so I mean that one specific example was you know two cattle that were biting up to each other and walking the same distance and route which is odd and that is different behavior and you can only pick things like that up when you're using real time data and the information from there so it has that dual purpose of again where the cattle are grazing okay you know should I move where my cattle are should they be in a different place closer to different water areas there's a whole lot of those possibilities that come up because you are actually you're digitizing your farm and that's really what it's about so yeah I mean and then you know you can monitor things like the gates and your store rooms and your process of your breeding all via the app itself yeah this is amazing we actually have a comment from Numvula Mutsunying and she says technology is making things to happen indeed Numvula it is making things happen and yeah I think reach out to the awareness company to get to know a lot more about their products and you know Priya sometimes as farmers or particularly also on this podcast we tend to focus on livestock or horticulture and I just remembered that your product also speaks to game farming you know specifically with the work that you're doing around with the rhinos okay so maybe just explain what product you're selling in that space because there could be game farmers you know there are massive massive or huge supporters of this farming podcast no 100% of Bali and I'm so glad you mentioned it you know that comes speaks to a lot of our background and where we came from you know the first solutions we deployed back in the day was in you know like the likes of the Kruger National Park and other game reserves and the game aspect has two aspects to it you know helping you protect those assets like rhinos you know there's a big problem in the country or actually globally so the technology actually helps them protect that but there's also a massive massive big ecology drive from our side you know it's the same principles that you would think about digitizing farms digitizing parks to help you understand all of that ecological aspects whether it's conserving water how best to use your resources you know tracking those animals as well learning those lessons it's all from the digitization aspects as well so we're very active in that space as well but here's the biggest value that we are providing as well one of the biggest values there's a deep interlink between these solutions so why we don't only do one sector like only agriculture only mining or only conservation as an example there's big lessons learned between them so we can take lessons across all of them and then it applies and makes everyone's solution better and that really speaks to the holisticness of it right on that conservation of the rhinos etc and I'm sure you know a lot of people like to hunt and those are particularly owned gain farms you know their animals are at risk of hunters so maybe similar to the rhinos like how can one protect their wild animals using the hydra system so you know is it the same monitoring system like you would do with cattle does it detect if there's any poachers nearby how does hydra work in that specific instance yeah it's a little bit of a different context from the farming but again it all comes down to utilizing the data so log in the data of where your people are where they should be active where they should be monitoring you can actually monitor the game itself as well there are solutions for that and we have done things like that but again it's helping them be proactive because once you get a digital picture in front of you of your game park remember game parks now are massive areas uh so again we utilize the data we understand the history you understand the weather you understand the moon phase functions and all of this data combined together gives them a picture that helps them anticipate the future and when you anticipate the future with hydra you're in a better position and the same applies to the farming as well you can anticipate and then you can act early so that's really what it's about right so i've got a few scenarios for you Priyash and maybe if you could just break it down as to the the multi functions or various ways in which one could use hydra so you know as farmers it's not the first time we're hearing about technology I mean even Nunvula said technology is changing the way we farm definitely you know and even from a global aspect so take a scenario one for example a farmer's farming maize on a thousand haters on a self-driven tractor and also maybe is using a drone to also scout the fields you know for any pests and diseases in that scenario one how is that farmer using how can that farmer incorporate hydra into the greater scheme of things because he or she is already using technology 100 percent I love this question because this comes down to one of the cause of what we're doing so one of the big issues is there's so much technology now and it's great and we love it um and then but for the farmer you know what we're getting now is they want one view of the stuff they want they want to look at one thing and they want to see the results of the scouting from the drone so what we have done is we've integrated drone data into hydra then they have a self-driving tractor you want to then track that tractor the movements and synchronize it with your spraying as an example and understand that so what hydra really provides for you as well is this one view of all your farming operations i.e. the holisticness of it then we can add into that all of the other aspects related to the what's the type of crop when our harvesting happens when should you be planting when you should be treating the field what's the weather like and again now we've already augmented the one tractor and the drone information with a whole bunch of other information and the important thing then is we get the history so that the farmer can you know when the farming season starts he can look back at the full history and say okay i've learned these lessons from that so it's all about putting it together scenario two let's take a vegetable farmer or a horticulture farmer so vegetable fruits etc you know you have let's say 20 people coming to work on that day maybe to pick fruits or to pick peppers or maybe to plant so hypothetically i'm just going to give you an average day of how things work the workers start let's say at 8 o'clock and then in that specific day they are maybe planting there's certain areas that they're planting and there's certain areas where they're picking so maybe they're planting on block A, B and C you know typically what would happen is that maybe the the foreman or the farm manager or supervisor would then write that information in a book or on their iPhone notes or you know any form of notepad that's even on a phone just to record that data to say you know we've planted block A, B and C and D and then also we've harvested maybe a hundred crates from block E, F, G, H right so now you know everybody goes upon their day at the end of the day then they could say today we harvested four blocks and today we picked four blocks of a hundred crates each how does that how does how does in the farmer transfer that information onto Hydra or would they be working on Hydra directly maybe just give us an example there 100% they will be working on Hydra directly and that's one of the innovations that we are bringing in the farming spaces so think that scenario all of those 20 farm personnel they'll be in the field with the Hydra app as they're performing their functions they'll be logging their data whether they're picking or whether they're scouting for something or any of that and as they're packing they can do all of that counts now the benefit of doing it directly in Hydra is that all of the output then is automated all of the reporting the analytics and the insight is all automated the other benefit is before any of that happens the farm supervisor as you mentioned the manager they can the day before a week before the time before that happens plan that entire thing out plan which people are going to go to which block comes on to their phone they know where to go they can open it on the app they can see where they are in real time in the farm and then they can walk to the certain block they can know they're there and then they can start their operations fully digitized so there is another brilliant example of everything can happen within the application and all of the other things are automated now the benefit in Bali and this one is big can you imagine now all of that being on paper someone needs to take all of that paper and correlate it put it together into a sheet or something like that the time that we are reducing by implementing it directly in Hydra is a massive massive saving to the farmer and to the all of the resources in that operation in that specific example Priyash is every farm worker let's say that 20 farm personnel is then every farm worker needs does do they need to now have a smartphone and download Hydra so that they can record on their phones is that what you're saying yeah and it all depends on the size of the operation so some if it's a smaller type of operation or not everyone needs a device if it's a bigger one then you know you can provide everyone with a device but this goes about the technology nowadays devices have become much cheaper and it's also a massive benefit of empowering the farm personnel with the digitization process because what happens is you start to upskill them as well again it comes down to making people better even the farm personnel on the ground starts getting better at what they're doing they start using data they start using these apps and they get skilled so it elevates everyone's performance whether you're the farm personnel or the farm manager or the farm owner so yes you know in an ideal scenario everyone is empowered to be able to work directly on the technology and I'm sure a lot of training would be needed because I can imagine you're saying on a bigger scale you know there are vegetable or fruit farms that hire hundreds of pickers for example let's say the grape farms or wine farms they hire hundreds of pickers and I can just imagine you know that admin of everybody just having their own phone and then onto Hydra how do you ensure that information is accurate correct they're taking the right stuff so I suppose some significant amount of training would be needed and also how do you then solve around the challenge of data issues you know not every farm is in Joberg close to like good connectivity for example you know there are farms in very very outscored regions and not to say that rural areas don't have good connectivity there are areas that have good connectivity but there are those areas where they just simply don't because I could be a maize farmer farming in thousands of hectares and some of those hectares are like in the middle of nowhere so how do you solve the challenge around internet connectivity real-time data you know can one still use the Hydra on the phone but you know that information could be I suppose refreshed once someone is connected to the internet 100% so the first part of your question is we've streamlined the onboarding process and there's a whole process to reduce it so there's not much training or anything needed and we also pride ourselves on making really we obsessed with user experience so the app must work and you mustn't need this training and it mustn't be this whole thing it's here download and we stress so we've streamlined that to quite an extent the second part is connectivity is a big issue on farms we understand that that's why we built Hydra to work offline as well so even if there's no connectivity the farm personnel can still log everything and as soon as it reaches into some form of internet connectivity it'll upload it and synchronize automatically so it does still allows everyone to operate even if the network goes down they can still perform their job and all of their functions yeah and just my last question Priyash this sounds so exciting you know how does then the from a subscription work you know from a subscription point of view how does then it work do I subscribe yearly monthly seasonally because again you know there could be farmers who are just purely breeders of specific livestock and maybe they're working in few months of a year they could be farmers who are just farming crop in a specific season maybe like Mays from November they're down harvesting by June and then you know for the next three four months there's nothing so is Hydra from a costing model or a payment terms quite flexible in the various seasons that farmers work etc yeah 100% I mean we've put a lot of thought into the model as well because it's got to work for the farmers itself so I mean our model is server space it's it's soft it's called software as a service and it and we flexible it can be an annual subscription it can be a monthly subscription and we're very flexible to cater for those different needs the question we always ask is what value is the farmer getting so in season he wants to do things but off season does he need to plan does he need to look at the history so there's always that type of questions we ask the farmer and if it's always a yes then they they buy an annual service as an example so we are we are completely flexible to cater for these different needs and requirements of the farmers and just on that flexibility does it also pertain to the size you know so basically for a farmer who's farming with just only 10 personnel versus a farmer who's farming on 100 personnel does that package also differ based on the scale of the business yeah yeah 100% so our model caters for this so we want to we want to provide the agri tech solution hydra to the small farmer as well as to the large agri organization so our model scales like that as well yeah Priyaj thank you so much it's been fantastic talking to you before we let you go just let us know where can we get more information on hydra are you offering any demo services so that farmers can trial it out because you know it is it does get one quite anxious on using new technology and you want to get things right I know I'm speaking for myself as a perfectionist here you know so and especially if you're used to doing things as particular way now you have to incorporate another piece of technology you know you want to kind of test it out you know before you fully invest so where can one get more information on hydra are you offering demos or you know and and and what type of support are you offering the farmer even when you're on board them okay so yeah first one we walk the digitized patient journey with you and first and foremost so we'll support and go through that so I mean and we like to deploy on the farm and as part of the learning process that's why our model is monthly so it's affordable for the farmer you know you don't need to jump into a year package or anything like that so they they they can test it out using that mechanism and and yeah please contact us I mean it's www.awarenesscompany.co.za I'm on LinkedIn Twitter Facebook you can reach out on any one of those platforms and yeah we would love to connect with the farmers agri-organizations so again www.awarenesscompany.co.za Fantastic thank you so much Priyash and all the best with business No thanks Ambali thanks for having us and yeah have a great evening It's a pleasure that was Priyash Ramadine co-founder of the awareness company and in tonight's show the topic was about holistic agriculture and he definitely provided a holistic view on how a farmer you at home could use Hydra I think the most important aspects of Hydra is that it could be used by a startup small-scale farmer to one that is very seasoned and established in the industry and they've got various products in mining you know in the game farming with rhinos as well and an agricultural offering that would suit any type of farmer irrespective of commodity their product and their packages are quite flexible and you know it's all about incorporating every single aspect on your farm and putting it into one platform where you can make an informed decision and have a holistic view of what is actually happening on your farm on the ground if you missed tonight's episode you could watch it immediately after this on our YouTube channel under the farming podcast playlist that is a private property YouTube channel to be exact and this is episode 88 under holistic agriculture you could catch my conversation with Priyash this evening at in YouTube right after the show so thank you so much for watching and supporting thank you Numbula for constantly emphasizing that technology is indeed a game changer in angry it's 2021 let's incorporate angry and we're going into 2022 so we have to be smart farmers we have to think of innovative ways in which we could make our lives a lot seamless and quite simple for us to manage these big and complicated sometimes enterprises that we're faced with and yeah that's it for me I will catch you on Thursday at 8 p.m. with another fantastic guest if you have any questions drop us a message and please subscribe to our channel like share comment on all our social media platforms we love to hear from you but that's it for me tonight take care