19. November 2019
Interview with Pix4D
Jorge Fernandez is responsible for the agtech sector at Pix4D.
Pix4D, will participate in the session on Agronomic Data
Programme 2020Drone technology offers a number of opportunities for agriculture. Jorge Fernandez, Head of Product with pix4D, discloses some of them in our interview. Founded in 2011, the company is already internationally known and has offices in Shanghai, China, San Francisco, Berlin and Madrid.
By Sarah Liebigt
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Farm & Food: Thank you for this interview. Please tell us a bit about your origins: In what area of expertise did you start out originally?
Pix4D: My background lies in remote sensing and geographic information systems. I specialized in risk management and natural hazards. But very early on in my career I started to work with drones and that’s how I ended up working at pix4d. Here I started to take care of the agricultural area.
Today your company covers not only multiple subjects, but also the world. How did PIX4D grow into an international company?
Four years ago, when I joined the company, pix4d was already international. We had offices in Shanghai, China and San Francisco. We grew like that because we had a market and customers that required support and sales. Then we invested more strategically invested in the offices here in Berlin to addresses agriculture, as well as in the offices in Madrid to focus on inspection as more of a strategic investment to explore new industries.
Are there any obstacles in working with farmers? As in: is it more difficult to access that field, are they more sceptic towards using new tech?
I think farmers and all the stakeholders around a farm are a unique and innovative group of people. I find it very easy to work with them. What is challenging is that there are many pieces on that machine, that they need to update when they are trying to adapt a new technology. So for example, drones and farming management platforms need to come together.
Working with farmers is very motivating. I would not say it is complicated. However, changing their entire ecosystem of tool is more challenging and takes more time.
Do you see new use cases at the horizon? Or do you think the possibilities to use drones and satellites in agtech are basically discovered?
I definitely see many new applications that will come as soon as this technology is established and people have larger data sets over time of the same field. I also see an explosion in the number of opportunities due to the number of possible combinations of data sets from satellites, drones and machines. I definitely do not think that everything has been discovered. The technology is solid. As soon as we put it in the field, the new use cases will come.
Whom do you hope to meet at the next Farm & Food?
I am very excited to meet some of the speakers who are going to be there. There are a couple of farmers, who completely changed their systems. I am interested in talking to them about how and why they did it and what they found useful along the path. There is also a number of larger agricultural companies and I am curious as to how they are bringing new tech to their clients, to the farmers.
