AI, Drones, Blockchain and Agriculture

2026-01-25 - 21:06

Listen to the AI generated audio article. Your browser does not support the audio element. A couple of years ago Shant Khayalian visited a small village in rural Armenia with a friend. They met his friend’s elderly uncle, a beekeeper whose hives had been devastated by parasites. The uncle explained how infection in one hive could quickly spread to the others, and how it was virtually impossible to see inside the hives to spot the problem. “It stayed in my mind like a bell,” Khayalian says. That conversation inspired him to found BeeSync, a startup developing AI-driven hardware to help beekeepers monitor the health of their hives. Khayalian is part of a small but growing agritech startup scene in Armenia. Entrepreneurs are using cutting-edge technologies to solve problems facing farmers, often those working on small-scale or subsistence farms in rural areas. “Beekeeping is changing. Everything in farming is changing,” Khayalian says. Applications of agritech in Armenia range from Khayalian’s AI-driven beekeeping device to blockchain tracing for wool rugs and drones for crop spraying and monitoring. These companies represent a growing interest in agritech among young Armenians, says Bella Vasilyan, head of TUMO Labs. The organization runs a free startup incubator program in Yerevan for anyone over 18. One of her most popular programs focuses on agritech. The program teaches participants how to found a startup, starting from the earliest stages of developing an idea. Vasilyan hopes that showing how tech can be part of agriculture will make the field “sexy” for a younger generation of Armenian entrepreneurs. “We’ve realized that youth can get very interested and enthusiastic in the field if you actually expose them to the possibilities,” she says. Agriculture is a major industry in Armenia. About 28% of Armenians were employed in the sector in 2023. Many who work in agriculture operate small-scale or subsistence farms, with farm holdings averaging just 1.5 hectares each. For that reason, Armenian agritech startups focus on small farms rather than large-scale commercial operations, like those in the United States. At SkyAgro, CEO and co-founder Emin Martirosyan and his team are using drones to make crop spraying more efficient, particularly for farmers with small farms. Drones can target small plots more precisely than crop-dusting airplanes and work faster than hand spraying. Martirosyan says this “precision application” lets farmers use 30% to 40% less chemicals and water—a significant difference for small-scale farmers in water-scarce areas like the Ararat Valley. The company started in 2021 with one drone and has now grown to a fleet of nine. SkyAgro now serves around 700 farmers in Armenia. At BeeSync, Khayalian and his team focus on small-scale producers, particularly beekeepers in rural Armenian villages. They have created a program that distinguishes between healthy and unhealthy bees using machine learning technology trained on thousands of digital 3D bee models. The hardware, a device attached to the outside of a beehive, includes a camera that photographs the hive’s entrance every 30 seconds. The AI program compares those photographs to its models to determine if bees entering and exiting the hive are affected by disease or parasites. If the bees look unhealthy, the device alerts the beekeeper. It also monitors temperature and humidity, notifying beekeepers of any changes. This allows beekeepers to understand what’s happening inside their hives without opening them. Khayalian says this information can help beekeepers increase their output significantly—by up to 40%, he claims. But Armenia’s agricultural economy poses challenges for agritech startups. Khayalian says American customers are much more willing to spend money on his product and its monthly subscription because they tend to run large commercial operations that generate more revenue. In contrast, the beekeepers he meets in rural Armenian villages often hesitate to spend anything on his product—they make so little money to begin with. Though not yet widely available, the hardware will likely cost beekeepers between $400 to $500, with a monthly subscription of about $10. Arya Jemal founded GrinTraq, a startup offering software that helps companies track their emissions and sustainability goals. Since arriving in Armenia as a researcher in 2023, the Armenian-American entrepreneur has been involved in sustainability projects in the country. Her research focused on climate resilience for small-scale farmers in Lori region, and she volunteered as a mentor in the TUMO Labs agritech incubator. Jemal says one of the biggest challenges for Armenian startup founders is that targeting only Armenian consumers sometimes is not enough to sustain a business. “You are going to run out of market really quickly,” she says. “It’s not a lot of people.” This is why Vasilyan runs the TUMO incubator in English and emphasizes teaching participants how to pitch to a global audience of investors. “The Armenian-speaking market is just small,” she says. Ani Mkrtchyan, the project lead of ArmWool, says the most important thing for startup founders and business owners in Armenia is to bring something different and “high value” to the market. What sets ArmWool apart, Mkrtchyan says, is a blockchain tool she and her team are developing that traces each step in the supply chain of Armenian wool rugs. Blockchain is a technology that creates a record of transactions within a computer system. It’s best-known for its applications in cryptocurrency, but it can also document each step of a rug being made, from the farmer who herded the sheep to the artisan who wove the rug. So far, ArmWool has blockchained eight rugs. In the future, Mkrtchyan says ArmWool hopes to create a membership program for producers and customers. Mkrtchyan says many people are surprised to learn how unsustainable the wool industry can be. For instance, sheep must be sheared every year, but there isn’t always demand for the wool that is produced. As a result, as much as 90% of wool is burned each year in Armenia. Her team wanted to create a tool to help consumers verify that the rugs they buy are made sustainably at each step. They were inspired by a similar use of blockchain to track supply chains in Sri Lanka’s banana fiber industry. As far as she knows, ArmWool is the only company using the technology in the textile industry. Because Armenia is a small country with a small workforce and economy, Mkrtchyan says Armenian rug makers will never compete in the mass market or produce the cheapest rugs. But unique ideas like ArmWool’s blockchain tool offer ways for Armenian rug makers to stand out. Khayalian and other agritech entrepreneurs say they sometimes face resistance from their target demographic. Armenian farmers, many of whom are often older people living in rural areas, are not always open to introducing new technology to their work. “They’re afraid of change,” Khayalian says. He’s met many beekeepers whose families have been doing this work for generations and are hesitant to change their approach. Vasilyan says her incubator participants have faced this challenge too as they develop their ideas. That’s why it’s important to visit villages, conduct interviews, and understand farmers’ needs and why the incubator teaches participants how to approach these conversations. “For them, it feels like you are taking their job away from them, not trying to make their lives much easier,” Vasilyan says. Some Armenian entrepreneurs in this space emphasize strengthening Armenian communities just as much as making money. Mkrtchyan is hesitant to even call the nonprofit organization she works for a startup. ArmWool creates employment opportunities for women in rural Armenia by building weaving and spinning centers, something Mkrtchyan says is just as important to them as bringing tech into the rugmaking industry. For Khayalian, who started BeeSync after one conversation with a rural beekeeper, helping bolster small-scale agriculture in villages is paramount. He wants to create a product that helps beekeepers rather than fully automating the process and cutting them out. 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