Cropin secures €700K to advance regenerative potato farming

Cropin has been awarded €700K under EIT Food’s Impact Funding Framework for its project, FIRST Potato – Field Intelligence for Regenerative Agriculture and Sustainability in Potato Farming. This initiative aims to help farmers transition to regenerative practices in potato cultivation through a smart, AI-powered decision support platform. We spoke with Prateek Srivastava, Vice President – EMEA at Cropin, about the project and their collaboration with Catalyze.

Prateek Srivastava, Vice President – EMEA at Cropin

About Cropin Technology Solutions

Cropin Technology Solutions B.V., a Netherlands-based subsidiary, is the Europe focussed R&D and Innovation arm of Cropin. Cropin is a global AgTech pioneer with over a decade of innovation, offering platforms like Cropin Cloud and Cropin Intelligence that power real-time insights for agribusinesses and farmers worldwide.

With operations in 100+ countries and intelligence built across 1 billion acres of cultivable land about 10% of the world’s croppable area. Cropin is a frontrunner in applying AI to transform global food systems. Its breakthroughs include the world’s first GenAI-powered enterprise agri-intelligence platform, a Micro Language Model (µ-LM) for Climate-Smart Agriculture, and the first industry cloud for agriculture.

The company’s core mission remains: Maximise per-acre value, by making every piece of farmland predictable, profitable, sustainable, and traceable.

About the Project: FIRST Potato

FIRST Potato addresses the urgent need to move away from conventional potato farming practices, which often lead to soil degradation, carbon loss, and biodiversity decline. This AI-powered decision support system (DSS) combines crop-specific intelligence, field data, and predictive analytics to help farmers adopt regenerative methods without compromising on yield or quality.

The platform’s capabilities will be validated through a scientific partnership with Aarhus University, which brings decades of research expertise in sustainable agriculture.

Prateek Srivastava comments, “It’s an absolute privilege to collaborate with Aarhus University, one of the leading institutions in agricultural science. What we’ve built in technology, and what Aarhus brings in terms of rigorous scientific validation, come together meaningfully in this project. This convergence has truly been enabled by the support of EIT Food.”

The project includes pilot testing in Denmark, followed by commercial validation, with the goal of making regenerative potato farming scalable and economically viable.

The Importance of EIT Food Funding

Prateek Srivastava shares, “Modern agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and soil degradation. Yet it also holds the key to solving these challenges. Regenerative practices offer a powerful path forward but adoption is slow due to economic risk and operational uncertainty. This is where AI and real-time intelligence can be game-changing.”

The EIT Food funding has been pivotal in enabling Cropin to:

• Accelerate deployment of technology that de-risks regenerative agriculture
• Partner with leading scientific institutions for real-world validation
• Deliver on EIT Food’s mission to build a fair, resilient, and sustainable food system by de-risking transformation at the farm level

This milestone reflects Cropin’s vision of becoming the trusted partner for regenerative transitions worldwide.

Partnering with Catalyze

Catalyze provided critical support in shaping the proposal, from aligning the project with EIT Food priorities, to articulating its impact for diverse stakeholders, and assembling a strong partner network.

Prateek Srivastava comments on the collaboration, “The Catalyze team was instrumental throughout. Their domain expertise, sharp proposal strategy, and ability to bring clarity to a complex funding framework helped us move quickly and effectively. We look forward to many such collaborations in the future.”