Gérald Germain, CEO of Carbon Bee speaks to FieldCraft Technologies about how Carbon Bee was formed and how the company aims to help Agriculture gloabally.
The History of Carbon Bee: 10 Years of Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture
The story of Carbon Bee began in 2012, in a small corner, with a visionary idea carried by Gérald Germain, then an independent consultant in IoT development and artificial intelligence. He was laying the foundation for what would become a revolution in agricultural detection.
A Clear Mission: Optimising the Use of Phytosanitary Products
From the very beginning, Carbon Bee has been committed to reducing the use of phytosanitary products to the strict necessary amount by optimising their application through cutting-edge technologies. This approach serves a dual purpose: minimising the environmental impact of agriculture while improving farm profitability.
From Initial Ideas to First Prototypes
The adventure took a concrete turn when the first hyperspectral camera prototypes showed promising results. The founding idea was to detect elements invisible to the human eye to assess the health status of plants. To achieve this, the concept was based on merging a standard image with spectral information captured through another means. This innovative approach opened up a vast field of possibilities for precision agriculture.
Thus, in January 2015, Carbon Bee was officially founded. The company was built on the conviction that reducing the use of chemical inputs is possible by optimising their application through intelligent detection of weeds and diseases.
Industrialisation and the First Detection System
After an initial phase of industrialisation, Carbon Bee launched its first weed detection system, Gen.1, in 2017. Installed on agricultural sprayer booms via masts, this version, though somewhat impractical, allowed the identification of weeds ahead of the sprayer’s passage and do weeding treatments in spot spraying and dual-dose modes. This first generation, deployed on a limited number of machines, served as a foundation for refining algorithms and improving system reliability, but also validate the new agronomy paradigm that use localized application of chemical compared to conventional treatments.
A key pillar of Carbon Bee's technology is its frugal Deep Learning algorithms, developed by Gérald Germain. Unlike conventional AI algorithms that require enormous amounts of data, these algorithms can quickly learn from just a few hundred images while efficiently generalising the acquired knowledge by extracting more information from each data. This allows our system to rapidly adapt to new crops and challenges without the need for excessive data collection.
Gen.2: A Major Leap Forward
In 2019, Carbon Bee launched Gen.2, a significant evolution that allowed cameras to be integrated directly into the sprayer booms, eliminating cumbersome masts. This integration improved sensor protection and made installation more ergonomic and robust. Simultaneously, we expanded our knowledge of global agricultural markets to create a product adaptable to diverse agronomic conditions. We studied specific needs in Europe, North America, and Australia, understanding how different climates, cropping systems, and regulatory environments influence farmers’ adoption of technology, and how to adapt the solution to the specific agronomy of these regions. This global perspective helped us create a flexible yet powerful solution.
SmartStriker-X: Industrial Maturity
The culmination of years of research and experimentation led to the launch of SmartStriker-X, a detection and spray modulation solution that is more powerful, robust, and designed for industrial-scale deployment. Leveraging the latest AI inference chips, this new generation saw its first prototypes validated in 2022 before being widely deployed from 2023 onwards.
Today, Carbon Bee equips sprayers worldwide: USA, South Africa, Eastern and Western Europe, and Australia. The system supports over 20 crops, including major ones, and operates in Green on Green mode (distinguishing weeds within a standing crop) as well as Green on Brown mode (detection on bare soil). Additionally, the inclusion of nozzle-by-nozzle modulation functionnality enables the application of treatments beyond herbicides, such as fungicides and defoliants, further enhancing the solution's versatility.
Insights from Our Customers and Market Evolution
Over the past decade, we’ve seen farmers across Europe embrace precision agriculture with increasing enthusiasm. Sustainability and efficiency have become top priorities, and Carbon Bee’s technology helps them achieve both. By applying treatments only where needed, farmers reduce costs and environmental impact while maintaining productivity.
Markets like the United States and Australia have shown strong interest in high-precision, high-speed sprayer integration, where farms are often large, and efficiency is paramount. Meanwhile, in Europe, regulatory pressure to reduce chemical inputs has driven rapid adoption of targeted application technologies. In South Africa, tackling herbicide resistance is a key concern, making AI-driven weed recognition highly valuable. Each of these regions presents unique challenges, but Carbon Bee’s adaptable technology allows us to meet them effectively.
One key trend we’ve observed is the demand for real-time data and fleet management tools. Farmers and agricultural contractors need precise control over their spraying operations, traceability of treatments, and remote monitoring. To address this, we are launching Hive cloud-platform, our fleet management and treatment traceability platform.
Hive: A Platform Opening New Possibilities
The launch of the Hive platform for fleet management and treatment traceability opens up a vast range of possibilities. This platform will enable the integration of new AI-based applications in the coming years. Among these innovations, a revolutionary self-learning system is in its last stage of development: it will allow algorithms to continuously improve with every hectare sprayed by one of our systems, ensuring ever-increasing efficiency. This level of continuous improvement means that every sprayer equipped with Carbon Bee technology contributes to making the system more effective—not just for itself but for the entire network of users. By analysing data across multiple machines and regions, our system can recognise patterns, refine detection accuracy, and optimise treatment strategies over time. This collaborative AI learning approach will drive the next generation of agricultural innovation.
Beyond its current capabilities, Hive is designed to support advanced AI-driven decision-making. The system will integrate predictive modelling, even at farm level, or weather-based recommendations to further refine spray application.
Sustained Growth and International Recognition
With a fleet of approximately 250 operational sprayers and millions of hectares treated since the project's inception, Carbon Bee has established itself as a leader in reducing agricultural inputs. By providing tangible solutions to farmers, Carbon Bee’s technology actively contributes to improving farm profitability while reducing the environmental impact of agricultural practices.
The team has grown, challenges have been numerous, and mistakes have been corrected, but today, Carbon Bee has reached an unparalleled level of maturity compared to a still-emerging competition.
And the adventure is just beginning…
To learn more about Carbon Bee and the amazing Smart Striker X click here
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