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Catching up with Trapview: An innovative Slovenian SME sees fantastic success with its exciting AI-infused pest solution

In the April 2019 edition of Research*eu magazine, we published an article on the Trapview project as the lead article in our Food and Natural Resources section. Over a year on, we reconnect with the project’s coordinator Matej Stefancic from Slovenian SME EFOS to find out how they’re progressing on their innovative smart pest monitoring solution.

Food and Natural Resources icon Food and Natural Resources

The core of the Trapview (Automated pest-monitoring system for sustainable growing with optimal insecticide use) project was the combination of artificial intelligence with monitoring information from smart field-based trap solutions in order to predict pest dynamics and thus alert farmers as to when their fields would need crop protection. This offers farmers a high-tech and super-efficient solution through the use of high-quality real-time data.

Key markets and technological progress

When we last interviewed Stefancic, he told us that Trapview’s key markets were France, Italy and Spain in Europe, the United States, Brazil and Australia. “These remain our key focus markets,” says Stefancic. “Of course, there are quite a few other markets as well but being focused is essential for us at this stage. Such focus has also brought us good results – in the last year alone, Trapview sales nearly doubled! Stefancic also reports that the EFOS’ technological progress has been nothing short of remarkable. “With the help of machine learning, we are now able to accurately predict future development stages of key pests – something that industry has been demanding for quite some time and is key information for successfully integrated pest management,” he adds. Having a tool that simply and accurately predicts the development stages of key pests is really a game changer and technology-wise that’s the part that Stefancic and his team are most proud of: “Of course, the most rewarding moments are, when we speak with clients who are using those features and they tell us that they have verified predictions with in-field observations and confirmed we are spot on – that’s where Trapview brings the most added value!”

An indispensable insect pest solution

Trapview and EFOS both seem to have bright futures ahead. “We had a good solution before we received the EU funding, but the project gave us the needed push to rise way above the average,” Stefancic says. “It also charted the way forward for after the project’s end. In January 2019, we raised a round (of investment) from the Dutch impact fund Pymwymic and that has allowed us to change our business model, be present with customers locally, remove the complexity of using the solution and above all, make Trapview an essential pest traceability and forecasting tool for thousands of professionals.”

Keywords

Trapview, trap, pest, pest solution, AI, artificial intelligence, insecticide, machine learning, pest management