Sberbank : Sber and Ministry of Agriculture introducing digital solutions into agribusiness

Sber and the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia have held a strategic session on artificial intelligence (AI) at SberUniversity. Herman Gref, CEO and Chairman of the Sberbank Executive Board, and the Minister of Agriculture of Russia Dmitry Patrushev delivered speeches at the event that was attended by people from the Agriculture Ministry, Rosselkhoznadzor (Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance), Rosrybolovstvo (Russia's Federal Agency for Fishery), agricultural producers, and Sber ecosystem companies.

At the strategic session, heads of Sber ecosystem companies and partner companies presented digital services to enhance the efficiency of agricultural production, while businesses and government agencies shared their insights into the implementation of digital projects and government programs.

The adoption of AI solutions in the agro-industrial complex and the economy in general can be compared to a next plan for electricity infrastructure deployment, with AI expected to become as widespread and available as electricity. AI systems enhance productivity across all industries dramatically, no matter where you introduce them. Sber believes its mission is to create instruments that would let any farmer 'plug in' and enjoy the fruits of AI by uploading datasets and getting their results. This would require coming up with complex and ultra-performance AI systems that, at the same time, would be extremely friendly for end users. That's exactly what we are doing today with other tech companies in Russia and with government agencies, including the Agriculture Ministry and our AIC efforts.

Herman Gref

CEO, Chairman of the Executive Board, Sberbank

AIC is among the biggest consumers of digital solutions today. We are currently working on a national platform for digital agriculture, which will meet all the key demands and secure a comfortable mode of interaction for agricultural market participants. The platform will essentially unite resources and data of information systems, making their data available to all agribusinesses. The digitization is evidently and primarily aimed at improving production efficiency, and the starting point here is to have precise industry-related data.

Dmitry Patrushev

Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation

Sber presented its AI services in computer vision, voice biometrics, cloud storage, data science, cybersecurity, veterinary telemedicine, smart devices, etc. These included:

• Cognitive Agro Pilot, an unmanned AI-driven system designed to control farming equipment; it's being used to gather crops throughout Russia
• AI-agronomist and AI-field evaluator, two services letting users evaluate and forecast crop yield of a field, identify abnormal deviations of the forecast from the actual yield, determine the actual boundaries of the cultivated agricultural land, etc.;
• Agro History, a cloud service by Geomir, allowing users to monitor the state of sown areas and the operation of equipment in the fields remotely, plan agricultural operations, keep field journals and much more
• Digital Clone, a service by Mustang Nutrition Technology, to manage a dairy farm, etc.

Sberbank pays close attention to the development of the Russian agro-industrial complex, which accounted for 8.6% of the bank's credit portfolio in 2020. This is RUB 1.4 tn, of which RUB 931 bn account for agriculture and RUB 444 bn for in the food industry. According to Russian Government Decree No. 1528, under the government lending program agricultural producers received RUB 680 bn at a preferential rate in 2020. As part of the program to improve competitiveness (Russian Government Decree No. 512), RUB 30 bn was provided.

Sberbank offers more than financial services. It also has AI-based business development services that improve profitability and productivity of an industry, facilitating the realization of its export potential.