1. Problem Statement

Corporate farming teams lacked reliable, structured visibility into on-ground crop conditions. Weekly farm updates were inconsistent. Media evidence was scattered. Traceability from farm to batch to buyer was not possible.
The goal: make farm operations predictable and build a verifiable digital trail from farm to fork.

2. High-Level Solution

I designed and delivered CropIn’s first microservices-based traceability MVP.
Two modules formed the core:

1. Farm Admin Module – Field teams capture weekly crop status, activities, risks, and geo-tagged media.

2. Corporate Dashboard – Centralized view of all farms, analytics, risk scoring, and traceability reports.

This foundation enabled CropIn to demonstrate technical credibility and secure its first angel round.

3. Key Technical Flow

Farm Data Capture

• Android app for field agents; offline-first sync.

• Weekly structured forms: crop stage, irrigation, pest incidents, soil moisture.

• Geo-stamped photos/videos uploaded via Media Service.

• Validation rules applied before data is committed to Farm Service.

• Clean data passed to the Traceability Service for batch linkage.

Corporate Dashboard

• Web UI pulls from Farm, Media, Analytics, and Traceability services.

• GIS map with farm-level status.

• Risk indicators generated from weekly updates.

• Historical logs and media for audit and compliance.

• One-click traceability report linking batch → farm → activities → evidence.

Traceability Engine

• Each harvest batch receives a unique ID.

• Data model connects batch → farm block → crop → activity logs → inputs → media.

• Enables downstream buyers to verify farm practices with digital evidence.

4. Architecture & Design Decisions

Microservices (MVP-critical)

• Farm Service, Media Service, Analytics, and Traceability Service.

• Lightweight REST contracts for rapid iteration.

• Allowed independent scaling and rule updates per crop type.

Schema-Driven Crop Model

• Standardized fields ensured uniform weekly reporting.

• Enabled early analytics and risk scoring without data cleanup overhead.

Offline-First Mobile Client

• Essential for low-network regions.

• Local queue → background sync → conflict checks.

Media Pipeline

• Compression + metadata tagging (GPS, timestamp).

• Cloud storage for low-cost archival and fast retrieval.

5. Business Benefits (Technical Outcomes → Impact)

6. My Contribution (CTO)

• Defined the system architecture and microservices boundaries.

• Designed the crop schema and data standards.

• Built the early engineering roadmap and development practices.

• Drove field pilots and tuned the workflows based on real farm operations.

• Delivered the MVP that demonstrated traceability at scale for the first time in the domain.