Soiltech Helps Organic Growers Do More with Less

Soiltech Wireless offers a comprehensive and cost-effective monitoring solution that can help organic growers do more with less.

“We are a farmer-first company,” said Ehsan Soltan, founder and CEO of the Rupert, Idaho-based company. “We focus on developing solutions that can help farmers do more with less and improve their profitability. We believe that in solving problems that growers face on the grassroots level, we can also address wider sustainability issues such as those related to water shortage and emissions reductions.”

Ehsan Soltan, Founder and CEO, Soiltech Wireless

Soltan started the company after meeting numerous farmers, agronomists, and crop consultants during his trips to Idaho and learning of the pain points they faced in their day-to-day operations.

“We are a farmer-first company. We focus on developing solutions that can help farmers do more with less and improve their profitability.” – Ehsan Soltan

Soiltech's product started its life as a wireless soil moisture sensor on potato farms to help reduce trips to the field and standardize the irrigation process, but the device has since evolved to become a multi-functional sensor and analytics platform that helps address a wide range of problems across the agricultural supply chain.

By using the Soiltech mobile app, farmers can see key details and data-driven insights from soil to storage, such as moisture, temperature, and humidity, helping with water and fertilizer efficiency and creating an optimized crop yield and increased revenue.

“Organic growers are already going to extra lengths to meet industry requirements, and the Soiltech solution can be a tool to help them in their everyday operations and hopefully unlock unanticipated value with the wide range of data we deliver to growers in a product that can operate throughout the whole supply chain—from seed to storage,” Soltan said. 

Recent case studies show the sensor's potential to save farmers 500 million gallons of water and 250,000 gallons of gasoline across 10,000 acres of farmland.

By using the Soiltech mobile app, farmers can see key details and data-driven insights from soil to storage, such as moisture, temperature, and humidity, helping with water and fertilizer efficiency and creating an optimized crop yield and increased revenue.

The biggest challenge for the company as it heads towards the new year is the job market.

“We are hiring staff in California and the Midwest to help bolster our growth after a successful first two years of deployments,” Soltan said. “Our team is our most valuable asset, and it’s an asset we want to grow. Finding high-quality talent is projected to be a challenge in 2022, but we hope that our story, product, and company culture will enable us to continue attracting good talent.”

With more and more attention paid to the importance of sustainability and traceability in agriculture, Soltan is hopeful that people will want to be a part of the solution.

“Soiltech provides industry participants with a tool to achieve goals in these categories,” he said. “So beyond the fundamentals of us delivering value to growers, we see a big opportunity in contributing to wider scale initiatives that will have a global impact.” 

One of the most important steps Soiltech took was to exhibit at the Organic Growers Summit, which provided the company’s leaders with a platform to speak to key industry participants and accelerate its entry into the Californian market. 

In the year ahead, Soiltech will be introducing an external antenna to complement its device for customers who wish to bury sensors deeper into the ground.

“So beyond the fundamentals of us delivering value to growers, we see a big opportunity in contributing to wider scale initiatives that will have a global impact.” – Ehsan Soltan

“Additionally, we are continuing to add features to our analytics platform that will help farmers in their operations, such as automated chill hours calculations, disease models, and weather forecasting,” Soltan said. “Our strategy is to continue focusing on delivering value to our customers. We will take a very determined approach to growth by segmenting markets throughout the USA.”

Soltan understands that a “one size fits all” approach is not possible in agriculture as each region, state, and grower is different, and it’s important for farming companies to find solutions that cater to their needs.

“Therefore, we will do our best to ensure we are tailoring our approach to each market and ensure we hear the specific needs of growers so that we can offer a product that delivers value for their operations,” Soltan said.