This last week of the fabacademy was all about inventions and intellectual property. We had to look at a number of different things, such as drawing up a dissemination plan to market our final project. We also had to prepare our website (slide/video) to present our final project. The list of assignments we had to complete was as follows.

Assignments

develop a plan for dissemination of your final project
prepare drafts of your summary slide (presentation.png, 1920x1080)
and video clip (presentation.mp4, 1080p HTML5, < ~minute, < ~10 MB)
and put them in your root directory

Objectifs

My main aim in carrying out this project is not necessarily to launch a very lucrative business - on the contrary. With the price of raw materials today, I think that if we're looking to make a lot of money selling this kind of product, then these robots will fetch a very high price and so won't attract anyone.

On the contrary, I'd prefer this device to be seen as an effective and affordable solution to these problems. Ideally, the purchase of a robot should pay for itself in no time, if we compare its cost with that of a second sowing if the first has been too badly damaged, or with the price of a repellent seed treatment, or with the price of a cannon and its gas consumption..
The problem of crows in France is a real problem in many regions, and no solution is very effective. Korit 420 FS a repellent widely used today for damage control will reach the end of its homologation period in March 2025.

If it is effective, the robot should be able to develop very quickly in order to respond to the problem before the solutions still used today are banned (plant protection products, cannons) and farmers find themselves at a loss.

What product should we offer?

The robot I'm presenting for my final project hasn't yet been completed, and a lot of work still needs to be done on it before I can propose something truly functional. There are still many points to be improved, so I'm just going to outline the key points that need to be addressed and that the robot will have to fulfill in order to be successful.

Efficient

For the robot to be a success, it has to be effective, of course. To be sure that my idea is effective, I'd first have to test it in real-life conditions to find out. The most important points to start with are that it should move around the plot completely at random, and that it should be able to emit sounds, which will also change randomly. Crows are intelligent animals and are quick to understand, so the simple use of a programmer on a cannon to modify the frequency of the blasts will greatly increase their effectiveness. I also wanted to add image recognition so that I could really track crows.

Accessibility

For the robot to be a success, it has to be accessible and easy to use for everyone. In France, there are people from all walks of life and of all ages. According to the latest French agricultural census, carried out in 2020, theAgreste says that the average age of farmers was 51,4 years old. This average age remains fairly old, and without making any generalisations, we can assume that we have access to a public that is not necessarily very tech-savvy.

The robot must therefore be very easy to use, and can be programmed using a computer or, more simply, a smarthphone via an application that is as simple and easy to use as possible. The tool and the support it comes with must be extremely easy to learn and operate, with documentation that is as detailed and precise as possible.

Inexpensive

As stated in the objectives, the robot must be profitable for the farmer, because even if it's effective, it won't be able to develop if it represents too great an investment for the farm. This solution will be used to protect cereals affected by corvid attacks, and in particular corn, which is the crop most affected by such damage. Corn produced in France can be used for a variety of purposes, including grain, methanization and, above all, livestock farming. This type of production is not the most profitable in France, so the use of such a device should not represent a considerable burden.

How to develop it

Securing grants and partnerships

In order to launch this project on a large scale, we'll need financing, and we could use the help of various players in the agricultural world. In France, we have various organizations such as regional chambers of agriculture, trade unions, regions or even large associations that could choose to support this project. If the proposed product is effective, on the one hand it will solve the problem of a good number of farmers having damage to their crops. On the other hand, it will be an alternative to cannons which make very loud explosions that can be heard far away, even at night, when it's not necessary, and which on top of that consume gases which, following the explosion, will become additional CO2 in the atmosphere. It's also a solution to the problem of repellents, which are harmful both to us and to the environment.

Nowadays, everyone is trying to adopt and promote solutions that are more virtuous in every respect, and a project like this could attract the attention of these organizations.

Cooperatives and wholesalers could also play the game by proposing more environmentally-friendly alternatives, and thus give a better image of themselves than the one they have today, which is to sell phytosanitary products mainly as crop protection solutions.

In France, research centers such as Arvalis ou l'INRAE could be a good partner, offering to test the product, they could write scientific articles resulting from field trials, scientifically attesting to the effectiveness of the device.

Renting to cut prices?

If ever the final product is too expensive, it might be possible to offer a rental service, rather than buying a very expensive robot. Farmers would simply take out a subscription, which would be cheaper than buying the robot outright. On the other hand, this approach would require more work, as we would no longer be offering a product but a service, which is quite different and entails a number of constraints.

Target clientele

Initially, the simplest thing would be to develop the project on a small scale, in the North of France for example, where I live and where I come from. The target audience would be mainly farmers, or test centers. Of course, if the development is a success and market demand is high, it will then be possible to expand nationwide and even internationally.

A good communication campaign

Although the robot is intended to be accessible to all, those most comfortable with technology are likely to be the first to want to try out the device. We can therefore imagine that focusing on social networks could be a good marketing strategy to target a public more likely to be interested in taking the first step.