When people think of the water they use, they tend to think of drinking tap water or perhaps their daily shower. But about 70% of the water we use goes to growing the crops that feed us, a number inflated by up to 90% in low-income countries. Finding water for other uses can be difficult.
In many areas, however, farmers are incentivized to use as much water as they think they need, even excessively, to ensure a successful crop. “Governments want to produce their own food. They don’t want water to be expensive,” said Jairo Trad, its co-founder and CEO Rughe told TechCrunch.
“But if farmers under-irrigate, there is a huge risk of losing production and losing money and losing more food,” he added. “There is an imbalance in risk.”
Cheap irrigation has turned many areas around the world into breadbaskets, but it also means there may be little left over for other uses.
For companies, water scarcity can be an existential threat. “If you have a million dollar, $200 million bottling plant and you don’t have water next week, there’s a lot of money at stake,” Trad said. “So we started talking to people and trying to give value to water.”
What Trad and his Kilimo colleagues have devised can best be thought of as a risk management tool. So far, the company has taken about 100,000 soil samples in 45 different types of crops in different countries, mostly in South America. From there, he uses those samples to link soil moisture to satellite imagery of farms, which is much easier to obtain.
“You have to sit close to the ground to understand how things behave in that particular terrain in that particular country,” Trant said.
Kilimo can then remotely monitor farms and advise farmers on their water use. It charges farmers a fee for the service, and if they successfully reduce water use, Kilimo can sell the excess water to a company that needs it in the same catchment, sharing a portion of the revenue with the farmer. In the end, farmers who limit their water use end up netting 20% to 40% more than they paid Kilimo. All are third-party verified according to the volumetric water supply accounting standard.
Although the startup has been around for about a decade, it is working to expand its operations as water scarcity rises to the top of executives’ lists of concerns. It currently operates throughout South America, including Argentina, where it is based, and Mexico. Next is the Southwestern United States and Europe. To support growth, Kilimo recently raised a $7.5 million series, which the company shared exclusively with TechCrunch. The round was led by Emerald Technology Ventures with participation from iThink VC, Kamay Ventures, Salkantay Ventures and The Yield Lab Latam.
Kilimo works with Microsoft, Intel and Coca-Cola, which have announced water commitments. (Data centers are big consumers of water, as are beverages.) Trad hopes to sign more. “Each company alone is not going to make a difference. But if you can leverage companies plus government and development entities, that’s where you start to make a difference,” he said.
