{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/62301a5c63c97500122f8a76/68713bebfe0897380eeb3c49?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"Replicating the Farmer’s Eye w/ Kia Behnia & Mason Earles, Scout","description":"<p>Having met at the UC Davis Wine Executive Program, Kia Behnia, CEO, and Mason Earles, CTO, founded <a href=\"https://agscout.ai/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Scout</a> to replicate the best sensor in the vineyard, “the farmer’s eye.”&nbsp;Leveraging off-the-shelf hardware, Scout uses AI to process images taken from a tractor to automate vineyard mapping, vine counting, yield forecasting, virus identification, and more.&nbsp;From managing vineyard assets to implementing precision agriculture to improve quality, Scout is harnessing the power of AI to optimize vineyard management.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Detailed Show Notes:&nbsp;</strong></p><p>Mason’s background - UC Davis Professor, Apple, AI &amp; agriculture</p><p>Kia’s background for Scout - owns the Neotempo wine brand, worked at Splunk, the “data for everything” company</p><p>The official company name is Agricultural Scout, dba Scout, the website is <a href=\"http://agscout.ai\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">agscout.ai</a>, so it can be called any of those names</p><p>Founded in 2022, initially more hardware-based, but pivoted to an intelligence company using off-the-shelf hardware</p><p>The goal is to “replicate the farmer’s eye” with an AI-based solution using cameras, tractors, and Scout cloud and mobile app (which can be used offline); the brain is centered around a phone</p><p>US only today (~50-100 clients, 300 blocks, 2M vines, processed 56M photos), going international in 2026</p><p>4 main use cases currently:&nbsp;</p><ul><li>Automate vine count, inventory, and mapping of vines - 4x faster than people could do</li><li>Estimate crop performance - both vigor and fruit</li><li>Yield forecasting - can use every step in the growing season to forecast yield with historical performance and weather forecasts</li><li>Health performance and vine mapping - leveraging AI for virus detection</li></ul><p>3 types of clients</p><ul><li>Estate wineries</li><li>Vineyard management companies (“VMC”)</li><li>Real estate investors or owners to track vineyards</li></ul><p>Benefits include:&nbsp;</p><ul><li>$400-1,200 savings/acre</li><li>Productivity gains through managing more acres with fewer people, identifying low-performing vines, and the program tells farmers where to sample</li><li>Remote monitoring of faraway vineyards</li><li>Early season yield forecasting</li><li>Disease management - virus can cause $170k/acre damage over 3-5 years, costs $40/PCR test, the goal is to keep virus &lt;15% not to lose the whole block, has a 7,000 photo database on vine disease</li></ul><p>Bench Vineyards discovered 1 acre of missing vines out of 24 acres and filled them in</p><p>Pricing is a subscription model, $150-180/acre per scan</p><ul><li>Volume discounts &gt;50 acres</li><li>Neighborhood and AVA discounts</li><li>Starter - 2 scan package (for inventory and virus)</li><li>Professional - 6 scan package</li><li>Typical customer starts w/ 2 and upgrades to 6</li><li>Monarch promotion, customers get 1 free scan</li><li>Up front hardware costs ~$3,000</li></ul><p>New product in beta in July 2025 - ChatGPT Scout for vineyards</p><p>Marketing mostly through word of mouth, industry trade shows, and webinars have been effective, as has partnership with Monarch (already tech enthusiasts)</p><p>Barriers to purchase are often due to farming budgets built around labor</p>","author_name":"Robert Vernick, Peter Yeung"}