A new Angolan IT platform proposes to put AI and satellite tracking at the service of farm management. The founder and director of the startup Kilunga, João N’vula, guarantees that farmers are registering “a 40% to 60% increase in production”.
The new technologies aim to enter agriculture with a range of tools such as AI, drones, sensors, robotics, and data analysis, focused on improving efficiency and increasing production.
However, new technologies do not only bring progress and advantages. They also bring new and serious problems that will require urgent solutions. A striking example is AI. While it contributes to water conservation efforts through precision agriculture, AI infrastructure represents a growing threat to local water security and entails significant environmental impacts, since AI systems require immense amounts of water to cool data centers and generate electricity.
Agritech is the use of technology—including software, hardware, AI, and biotechnology—to improve the efficiency, productivity, and sustainability of agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture. It optimizes agricultural production through tools such as drones, sensors, robotics, and data analysis to address the challenges of 21st-century production.
The agritech company Kilunga uses satellite imagery and AI models to monitor crop health in real time and combines this with integrated agricultural, financial, and operational management tools that enable sustainable, data-driven agricultural decision-making.
In this way, the agricultural technology company helps farmers make decisions and improve productivity sustainably, said João N’vula. “We use European satellites to help farmers in Angola and now we are expanding to Africa in general, with our partnership with the Lobito Corridor. The Lobito Corridor is one of the most important logistics corridors in Africa right now. It is expanding its importance globally, including China, the United States and the Emirates, which are also heavily investing in the Lobito Corridor. And we are there to digitize farms along that corridor and expand our operations in the region.”
The director of Kilunga emphasizes that agritechnology allows farmers to have spatial control of their farm, while needing to invest less time in planning and managing the activity, “because they will have everything in one place: financial management, team management, task management, and automatic cost calculation.” João N’vula adds that new analysis tools and financial indicators allow monitoring the technical and financial health of a farm and making informed decisions quickly based on data visualization.
“If you are going to plant, you will need climate data. This climate data will tell you when it will rain and allow you to make the best plan. To make the best plan, you will need to register the plot; on the platform, you delimit the plot,” said N’vula, adding that it’s as if the farmer were physically plowing the land, treating it, and planting the seeds. “You register online, delimit the land, and name the plot, the geo-reference of the plot, and descriptions of what will be done in the plot. Then, you go to the planting section, which is also on the platform, and there you can choose the plot, choose the inputs that will be in the plot, and also the date on which the plot will be used for planting. Then, based on this data, you can automatically know how much you will spend, and from there you already know how much you will sell each product for in order to have the proper return.”
Satellite tracking of a farm also allows for much more effective control of crop diseases and pests. “When a plant is healthy, it reflects light from the soil in a certain way. The satellite, when capturing these images, captures this in four bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Unfortunately, our eyes cannot observe this, but the computer observes it, and our algorithm takes those bands and calculates. This allows it to provide information on the vegetation index and moisture index of that zone. Based on the vegetation index, it can determine if the crop is healthy, where it is healthy and where it is unhealthy, and where there is moisture or no moisture, or where it is completely dry. This information is crucial for monitoring the farm and enabling a more professional and truly more commercially viable operation, because it will allow for increased production and higher quality.”
“Our clients report a 40%, 60% increase in their crops,” says João N’vula, adding that the startup has also begun entering the agricultural product storage business. “They have to sell very quickly, otherwise the products end up spoiling. And we observed another market there and started creating intelligent logistics stations for storing agricultural products,” he explains. “The distributors charged very high prices, according to the client’s needs. But, with an intelligent logistics station, the farmer can control everything from the platform; they have the possibility and the time to wait for better offers, to negotiate better offers.”
N’vula emphasized that a partnership is being established with Mandume ya Ndemufayo University (UMN), an agricultural university, and also with training centers specializing in agricultural courses, in order to help people understand the importance of this data, the importance of working with accurate information. Literacy is an obstacle, he notes. “There are areas where they don’t even use cell phones, and when they do, the network is scarce. So, it’s a problem. I’ve even been able to contribute to the government by participating in the National Financial Inclusion Strategy. Speaking of financial inclusion, we’re involving digital technology. So, we also had to think about network distribution and much more, how information would reach them. With my field experience, with the project, I’ve already been able to contribute in that area. And the government is also starting to look at this point, and we’re trying to address digitalization, which will also facilitate our entry into the market.”
The startup manages a total area of 7,000 hectares in Quimbele, Benguela, Cuanza Norte. And it is entering Lobito, with the goal of expanding to farms along the Lobito corridor.
Luís Guita
Link para Kilunga: https://kilunga.online/
