Pilot Launch | Solena Ag: Leveraging AI to improve soil health and crop yields for sugarcane farmers in Mexico
Mercy Corps Ventures has launched a pilot with Solena Ag leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to help farmers and extension workers improve agricultural practices. This pilot emerged out of a collection of 318 proposals from our AI for Climate Resilience call for proposals, launched in July 2024, which is exploring how AI is being used in emerging economies to build climate resilience for the most climate-vulnerable communities. Nearly half (47%) of the applications we received centered around the potential of AI in agriculture, with many focused on providing critical insights to enhance decision-making and farm management.
Solena leverages AI to analyze the soil’s biome and deliver actionable information that helps sugarcane farmers in Mexico optimize planting, irrigation, and the application of crops and fertilizers.
This post will be followed by other posts highlighting key insights after the pilot is completed. Written by Maria Gomez, Innovation Manager at Mercy Corps Ventures and Irving Rivera, CEO, Solena Ag.
In brief:
Through our AI for Climate Resilience call for proposals, Mercy Corps Ventures is focused on the role of advanced climate analytics (AI / ML) in improving climate resilience within agriculture and agroforestry, with the aim of improving farming practices and crop yields
In Mexico with Solena, we are using AI to analyze the soil’s biome and provide targeted recommendations for sugarcane farmers
Through this pilot, we aim to empower farmers to become better stewards of their land by adopting regenerative agriculture practices, ultimately enhancing their yields and increasing their revenues
The Problem
Climate change and soil erosion are threatening farmers across the world
The agriculture and food sector faces a monumental challenge of feeding the world’s population. In 2022, the world was behind on achieving the United Nations’ Zero Hunger Sustainable Development Goal, with 735 million people still facing chronic hunger . Moreover, due to a growing population, demand is increasing, and the sector is expected to need to feed 9.8 billion people by 2050.
At the same time, agriculture is one of the most climate-sensitive sectors, heavily impacted by droughts, unpredictable rainfall patterns, and extreme weather events. For example, in 2024, record temperatures and drought significantly reduced corn and sorghum production in South America and Mexico, floods in the UK reduced yields in barley, and El Niño severely affected cocoa production in West Africa, leading to a rise in market prices. Compounding these challenges, widespread soil degradation has significantly reduced land productivity, with 33% of the world’s land now moderately or highly degraded. Farmers must navigate these challenges while working to produce more food, sustainably and equitably, to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding global population.
In Mexico, these global trends are hitting smallholder sugarcane farmers particularly hard. Over 45,000 farmers supplying Beta San Miguel (BSM), one of Mexico’s leading sugar mills, are seeing their livelihoods threatened by a combination of soil depletion and climate stress. Decades of monoculture farming have stripped the soil of essential nutrients, leading to yield declines of 10–20%. Meanwhile, rising temperatures and prolonged droughts are further disrupting traditional growing cycles, exacerbating the problem and reducing yields by another 5–15%. This dual crisis is shrinking farmer incomes and jeopardizing the long-term sustainability of sugarcane farming — a vital economic activity for thousands of smallholders in emerging markets.
Scaling solutions for climate-resilient farming is challenging
To increase climate resilience and restore soil health, farmers worldwide are adopting new approaches such as agroforestry, regenerative agriculture, and precision agriculture. These methods offer promising pathways to mitigate the effects of climate change while improving long-term productivity. Precision agriculture, in particular, has the potential to revolutionize farming by providing data-driven insights on soil health, nutrient management, and input optimization — helping farmers make smarter decisions about planting, irrigation, and fertilization. When farmers have access to accurate information about their soil and tailored recommendations, they can adopt more regenerative practices and become better stewards of their land. Regenerative agriculture improves soil health by retaining water and nutrients, enabling crop diversity, and reducing soil erosion. These practices not only enhance climate resilience but also provide farmers with multiple income streams throughout the year.
Despite their promise, scaling these solutions has proven challenging. Transitioning to regenerative agriculture is expensive and time consuming, requiring substantial training and tailored approaches for specific land conditions. And precision agriculture tools, while effective in specific crops and large-scale plantations, are often inaccessible to smallholder farmers due to the high costs of sensors, soil testing, and the expertise needed to interpret complex data.
These barriers make it clear that, though promising, these solutions require greater innovation to become more accessible, affordable, and scalable for smallholder farmers worldwide.
Soil sample in a sugarcane field in Mexico
The Pilot
Mercy Corps Ventures is partnering with Solena Ag and Beta San Miguel (BSM) to pilot a first-of-a-kind solution leveraging AI to transform how farmers manage soil health. Solena’s Prometheus platform analyzes each farm’s unique soil microbiome, offering deeper insights than traditional soil testing methods. The platform prescribes tailored recommendations, including cover cropping and optimized fertilizer application, which can improve nutrient cycling, reduce costs by up to 15%, and potentially reverse yield declines caused by monoculture farming. Additionally, Solena’s AI-driven microbial solutions aim to enhance sugar content and counter climate impacts, potentially increasing yields by 5–10%.
By partnering with BSM, this pilot can reach smallholder farmers at scale through their extensive network of over 45,000 farmers and well-established system of extension workers. This collaboration allows Solena to engage with farmers more effectively than it could on its own, leveraging BSM’s trusted relationships to accelerate adoption. Additionally, it provides an opportunity to test a new business model — one that integrates advanced soil analytics into an existing agricultural supply chain, potentially creating a scalable, cost-effective approach to improving soil health and productivity.
We are especially excited about this pilot’s potential to generate new evidence on how advanced soil insights and tailored interventions can improve yields for smallholders while building sector-wide innovations in sustainable sugarcane farming. This partnership combines cutting-edge AI technology with trusted local relationships, offering a blueprint for advancing climate-resilient agriculture in emerging markets.
Learning Agenda & Key Hypotheses
We will test three core hypotheses in this pilot:
AI-powered recommendations for regenerative practices will lead to improved soil health. Our north star is to increase the adoption of climate-resilient practices among smallholder farmers, which contribute to improved environmental outcomes and increased climate resilience.
Recommendations for optimized fertilizer use will increase farmers’ revenues. Our north star is to increase farmer profits.
Partnering with Beta San Miguel will allow Solena Ag to cost-effectively reach smallholder farmers. Our north star is to launch financially sustainable and scalable products serving smallholder farmers.
We hope that by leveraging AI and new partnerships, Solena Ag will be able to innovate its business model, reach smallholder farmers in cost-effective ways, and increase their climate resilience. Find more details about our AI for agriculture pilots here.
Sugarcane plantation in Mexico
Stay Tuned
Stay tuned for updates, evidence, and insights on our other Mercy Corps Ventures pilots responsibly testing technology solutions to increase the climate resilience of vulnerable populations in emerging markets.
