Democratizing digital agriculture through ecosystem-based approaches for smallholders

December 9, 2025

Agriculture remains central to northern and northeastern Thailand, yet farmers have limited support to address soil degradation, climate uncertainty, and market access. Fragmented data systems hinder oversight of farm activities and supply chains, while limited access to modern technologies makes it difficult for farmers to manage production under increasingly severe climate risks.

In partnership with herb farmers, ADB, AIT, and KRDA, we piloted a digital traceability solution in Nan using our FarmAI platform. This is the first in a short series of articles sharing our experiences in applying digital tools to support climate-smart and regenerative agriculture. Through this series, we aim to show how these demonstrations serve as effective models for accelerating technology adoption and underscore the role of our partners in scaling solutions for meaningful impact.

Poverty in Thailand is concentrated in the northern and northeastern regions, where household incomes are often less than half those in the Bangkok metropolitan area. These regions are key agricultural areas, with 30.5% of land dedicated to farming, the highest share in the country [1]. Yet, farmers often face limited access to technical, financial, and market support, making it difficult to improve productivity or transition to higher-value crops [2][3].

Temperature increase in Nan over the past 30 years. Data from Thai Meteorological Department.
Significant fluctuations in annual rainfall (750–2,200 mm) in Nan over the past 30 years. Data from Thai Meteorological Department.

In Nan Province, in the northern region, the impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly severe. Over the past 30 years, rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, and more frequent droughts and seasonal shifts have stressed crops, reduced yields, and threatened farmer incomes. While smallholders have historically adapted to variable conditions, these new patterns are pushing their resilience to the limit.

Farmers face additional barriers. For example, a group of herb growers in Nanoi district, despite strong market potential for essential oils, struggle to meet quality standards, limiting their access to high-value buyers. The growing demand for sustainable sourcing and verifiable claims has made “first-mile” sustainability data (information collected at the point of production) essential. Without this data, farmers cannot demonstrate compliance, reducing opportunities for long-term partnerships and higher profits [4].

Roundtable discussion with farmers and extension staff›

A key constraint underlying these challenges is the lack of supply chain visibility and access to modern technologies that help farmers manage both production and climate uncertainty [5]. Precision farming tools and digital platforms can bridge this gap, supporting farmers to produce high-quality, compliant crops while providing the transparency that buyers require. Implementing these solutions can strengthen livelihoods, improve resilience, and unlock access to more lucrative markets.

In collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Kubota Research & Development Asia (KRDA), farmers from Essen Planters Nan, and local institutions, we demonstrated how the FarmAI platform can serve as a practical tool for digital traceability and data-driven crop management. We demonstrated how farmers, extension staff, and partners can easily manage and visualize soil health, microclimate, crop performance, and farm management data through a single integrated system, potentially reducing inconsistencies and allowing stakeholders to work in a more coordinated way.

The demonstration helped establish early trust with farmers and extension officers, allowing us to understand real workflows and constraints on the ground. Farmers were already tracking key production metrics, such as harvested input weight, daily output volume, supply capacity, and individual quotas, but lacked tools to digitize and use this information for traceability or quality assurance. Extension officers expressed strong interest in Near-Infrared (NIR) soil scanners, because of its rapid results compared with conventional laboratory tests that often take months. Farmers also reiterated their vulnerability to unstable weather conditions, linking fluctuations in temperature and rainfall directly to herb quality and yield. The installation of micro weather stations was therefore seen as not just a technological upgrade, but a necessary tool for managing uncertainty.

Improved visibility of farm and distillation operations

Scaling up this demonstration into a broader, long-term program will enable Nan’s highland farmers to fully benefit from climate-smart, data-driven agriculture. Wider adoption of digital farm management for traceability, sustained across multiple crop cycles, provides opportunities to refine farming practices and generate measurable climate and economic gains, including improved soil health, reduced emissions, more efficient water use, higher yields, and lower input costs. As these practices spread to neighboring regions, they strengthen local food security and open pathways to higher-value, sustainability-oriented markets.

We deeply appreciate our project stakeholders and partners from ADB, AIT, KRDA, Essen Planters Nan, and local Agriculture Extension Offices. Their trust and partnership were essential to the success of this initiative.

In the next article, we will explore how FarmAI is being applied to support regenerative agriculture for rainfed jasmine rice farmers in Northeast Thailand, with the goal of improving soil health, lowering input costs, and enhancing farmer resilience, in partnership with ADB, Kasetsart University, and Unilever.

References

  1. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15528014.2024.2334487#d1e763
  2. https://rksi.adb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/rural-urban-poverty-and-inequality-thailand.pdf
  3. https://ait.ac.th/2021/02/ait-and-its-partners-support-thailand-in-implementation-of-2m-adb-technical-assistance-on-climate-smart-agriculture/
  4. https://orijin.io/blog/smallholder-farmers-in-southeast-asia
  5. http://www.ccaa.ait.ac.th/listenfields-ai-technology-empowering-smallholders-in-the-agricultural-sector/

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