A Russian Bank Just Launched an AI-Powered Tool for Choosing Crop Protection Chemicals

The country’s agtech scene is heating up—and yes, there’s even a plant-diagnosing robot named Vavilov.

Russia’s agricultural tech wave just gained another layer of intelligence. Rosselkhozbank, one of the country’s major state-backed financial institutions, has released a smart online service that helps farmers select the right crop protection products—think herbicides, fungicides, and pest control agents—with precision.

The tool lives on the bank’s digital farming platform Svoe Fermerstvo (which translates to “Our Farming”) and promises to be a game-changer for the country’s agrarians. How? By factoring in three core variables: crop type (grains, oilseeds, technical crops), threat type (weeds, diseases, pests), and economic efficiency indicators.

Behind the scenes, the service taps into a massive Rosselkhozbank database with over 43,000 use-case scenarios. Each product card includes detailed data on dosage rates, approved crops, compatibility with other “plant meds,” and optimal treatment timing.

The platform already features more than 60% of all officially registered plant protection products in Russia. And demand is growing fast—usage of smart selection tools has jumped 35% over the past year, according to bank analysts.

But that’s just part of the picture.

Across Russia, agriculture is going digital in surprising ways. One standout: a student-built robot called Vavilov (named after legendary botanist Nikolai Vavilov). The AI-powered cyborg is designed to detect early signs of plant disease—a task traditionally left to human intuition and a good pair of boots in the field.

If the trend holds, Russia may soon be known not just for wheat fields and tractors, but for smart, self-learning ecosystems that optimize everything from seed to harvest.