Farm Management

•

Paris, France

Seed-to-harvest real-time farm management & automation system for an agritech startup

SERVICES WE OFFERED

Vision Management

UI/UX Design

Backend Development

Frontend Development

Database Development

Infrastructure

Mobile Development

Quality Assurance

The requirement.

Our client Champerché is an official FoodTech500 urban vertical farming company based in France, that uses an innovative combination of permaculture & hydroponics to grow over 150 species of fruits & vegetables.

With no tech team in house, it literally started from a blank page and a simple challenge they gave us: how do you scale operations from a 50m² farm with a production capacity of 3 tons a year to a 4,500 m³ farm with a production of 3 tons a week? Our answer: software automation.

In other words, here was the mission we undertook: to build the foundations of a scalable software ecosystem that would start by ensuring complete control and automation over the fruit and vegetable life cycle, using real-time management of over 2,000+ connected sensors across multiple farms.

Solving for Sustainable Cities and Communities and more.

Every project that we take up is aligned to one or more of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

SDG #3

Good Health & Well-Being

SDG #9

Industry Innovation and Infrastructure

SDG #12

Responsible Consumption and Production

SDG #2

Zero Hunger

SDG #11

Sustainable Cities and Communities

SDG #15

Life on Land

SDG #2

Zero Hunger

SDG #11

Sustainable Cities and Communities

SDG #15

Life on Land

How we did it.

When you take the decision to step away from existing third-party solutions (because you realise being a tech company that they restrict your capacity to scale operationally) and intend to build a proprietary software ecosystem, founders must look at what it takes below the iceberg before even seeing the light of tangible outputs they wish to operate. Hence, our first step is always to build the foundations for a stable, flexible & scalable ecosystem, from both a strategic and technological standpoint. We do this by educating the C-levels of the company involved and here, laying the groundwork for Champerché included:

Creating a universal architecture & a unified implementation plan
Creating a unified visual identity & imagining a standardised UI/UX flow
Creating a set of developing & coding standards
Training their internal team to a method for a relevant stack identification
Overall implementing an agile SDLC to build an optimised ground for the future

Point 1

We created a universal architecture for scale

Point 2

We developed a set of proprietary coding standards

Point 3

We implemented a standardised UI/UX flow

The tech stack

With a limited & aspirant software team at Champerché, we first had to consolidate principles for them. Bring it all to a unified ecosystem. It wasn’t just about which tech stack to go for, but also how the tech stack would be used, including principles such as creating a standard project structure, a code folder structure, syntax used, libraries used, a push-merge template, code conflict resolution, deployment standards and procedures, unit testing documentation and more. Following this ethos ensured consistency across the ecosystem, for today and forever.

A proprietary SDLC

Another intangible yet crucial element to building a scalable ecosystem for Champerché, the process of creation. Questions such as: How do you plan a sprint? How does every team member get involved? How do you define accountability for where it got wrong? How do you readjust? How do you assign tasks across functions, when at least 20 people collaborate together? How do you maximise efficiency, how do you prioritise? This is what takes most time for a software team and this is where most tech companies fail at: setting up a proprietary software development life cycle. This is where we always wish to bring the most value: sharing what Antarctica knows.

A scalable product

Following our roadmap, we went on a massive 8-weeks design sprint involving 3 designers, our solution architect, our CTO and their team of farmers, to break down every step of Champerché’s operations in the farm. In under 8 months, we were able to design and develop a software that would meticulously follow the plant journey and allow the team to manage, control and record every activity of the seed-to-harvest crop cycle. By connecting hundreds of sensors to a visual interface, the software can reflect the status of any on-going or past process, an internal error or a system event. An alert mechanism was developed using synchronous notifications and a business & reporting engine was built as a foundation for AI & ML.

Frosty the Penguin Selfie of Antarctica Global the Custom Software Development Company

The impact it had.

We thrive to help companies understand the importance of mirroring their proprietary operational process into a proprietary software ecosystem, so that the day their process evolves, their software can also evolve and contribute to optimising every aspect of their operations.

At Champerché, there was an understanding of what functionalities they wanted to see. But that was pretty much it. And yet, a functionality doesn’t make a product and a product is not a sum of functionalities. A script for the humidity level of a parcel from an IoT sensor to the database doesn’t bring any financial value as a standalone. It serves an immediate purpose for that particular function but it has no inherent value besides having certain workflows automated. Any software developer for that matter, if given enough time & information, can create a script or a function but at Champerché, we had a responsibility to imbibe the philosophy of a software ecosystem.

To bring that particular script to be part of a larger ecosystem & plan. A unified implementation plan, so that whatever technology they would be developing in the future would end up adding operational and financial value to the organisation. And this is exactly what happened! This product was the very beginning of an adventure we collectively went on, in building many products as part of a larger ecosystem. Such a wonderful collaboration.

Fascinating times.

We feel a profound gratitude for having such projects come our way and that motivates us even more to beat all odds.

Our team

3 designers, 14 developers, 2 testers, 1 architect

32 weeks

We completed all this in a matter of just 32 weeks.

1 commitment

Our heart and soul from vision to deployment.

The tech stack we chose.

There is a reason why we set our standards so high: adaptability, efficiency, scalability.

Discover our tech stack

What the client had to say!

We have yet to experiment with various industries but we’re skilled enough to take risks and keep our good reputation going!

Antarctica is an expert company in the field of software development. We feel they are a true extension of our technology team. They are great listeners, give insightful recommendations and have been solid mentors throughout our journey.

Vincent Félisat

Head of IT, Agritech Company

The client came back for more projects.

The client couldn’t get enough. We delivered more than what they could

have imagined and they came back for more projects.

Agriculture