Scoutlabs

Manual pest scouting has barely changed in decades.

A scout walks through the field. Checks each trap. Counts the bugs stuck to the sticky paper. Writes it down. Reports back.

By the time that data reaches the farmer, it's already outdated. Pest swarms don't wait for weekly check-ins.

And the data quality? Depends entirely on who's doing the counting. One scout might see 15 codling moths. Another might count 9 looking at the same trap.

This costs about $100 per trap per season when you factor in labor.

Digital alternatives exist. But they are expensive and family farms can't afford that.

So millions of farmers worldwide are stuck choosing between expensive automation they can't buy or manual systems that don't work very well.

Climate change is making this choice worse. Warmer temperatures mean pests that used to hit once per season now swarm three times.

Donát Posta lived this problem on his family's sweet corn farm in Hungary. One bad year, European corn borers destroyed a huge portion of their crop because the manual trap data was slow and unreliable.

He checked for solutions. Everything cost 10X what his family could afford.

So he built something different.

Here's what Scoutlabs created.

ScoutLabs uses AI-powered digital traps that cost 10-30X less than competitors to detect pest swarms in real-time, helping farmers apply pesticides only where and when needed.

Let's start with why manual pest scouting is such a problem.

Traditional pest control works like this: Farmers set up delta traps in their fields. These traps use pheromones to attract specific pests. Once a week, maybe twice if you're diligent, a scout walks or drives through the field, checks each trap, counts the bugs stuck to the adhesive paper, writes it down, and reports back.

The data is always outdated by the time it arrives. Pest swarms don't wait for your weekly check-in.

And the data quality? Questionable. You're relying on manual counts from people who might be tired, rushed, or just not great at identifying which bug is which.

This costs about $100 per trap per season when you factor in labor. That adds up fast.

And digital traps from competitors are expensive.

So Scoutlabs flipped the entire equation.

Their traps cost about $33 per season subscription. That's one-third the cost of manual trapping, and way cheaper than other digital solutions.

How they work:

They use standard delta traps - the same physical traps farmers already know. But instead of waiting for a scout to check them, each trap has a small camera, a solar panel, and a cellular SIM card.

Every single day, the camera captures a high-resolution image of the sticky paper inside the trap. That image gets uploaded to the cloud where Scout Labs' AI analyzes it.

The AI identifies which insects are present and counts them. European grapevine moths. Codling moths. Navel orangeworms. Whatever the farmer is monitoring for.

Scoutlabs doesn't just rely on AI. Their team of entomologists reviews the AI-powered identification regularly. So you get the speed of AI with the accuracy check of human experts.

Farmers get automated alerts when pest pressure crosses a threshold. Not a week from now. Same day.

You can see exactly what's happening in every field without starting your car. The system generates heat maps showing where pest pressure is building so you know exactly which sections need treatment.

The real innovation is the cost structure.

Scoutlabs kept costs low by hyperfocusing on delta traps. They're not trying to detect every pest in every trap type. They optimized their AI models specifically for delta traps, which handle the majority of high-value crop pests - things like moths in almonds, pistachios, grapes, and apples.

The traps are easy to set up. Takes a few minutes. Solar-powered, so no batteries to change. Weather-proof. Cellular connectivity is included.

Farmers still need to change the pheromone lures and sticky inserts regularly - that's standard trap maintenance. But they don't have to physically visit each trap to check and count bugs anymore. The camera does that automatically every day.

Because the traps are so affordable, farmers can deploy them more densely. Instead of 1 trap per 5 acres (typical for manual systems), you can go denser and get better data.

More traps means better data. Better data means more precise pesticide application.

They claims farmers can reduce pesticide use by over 10X by only spraying where and when it's needed.

Other than just cost savings. That's preserving beneficial insects, preventing pesticide resistance, and reducing environmental contamination.

Scoutlabs is already deployed across Hungary, UK, and US. They're monitoring European grapevine moths, navel orangeworms, codling moths, and other major pests.

They're now planning to deploy 50,000 traps in the coming years and expand into France and Spain.

What Scout Labs is really selling isn't just cheaper traps. It's data density at a price point that family farms can actually afford.

For decades, precision agriculture has been something only big operations could access. Scoutlabs is changing that.

Scoutlabs unpacks the process of digitizing pest management and 'the changing buyer' in agtech ↗

Founders Donát Posta and Jimmy Fong explain how they retrofit existing traps, why their direct-to-grower model works at $33/season, and how the new generation of farmers buys technology differently. [8 min read, AgFunderNews]

Scoutlabs: smarter pest control, smarter farms ↗

How Scout Labs achieved 10X growth in one season with EIT Food funding. Plus the technical details on their IoT trap network, AI accuracy rates, and entomologist validation process. [6 min read, EIT Food]

Scoutlabs documentation↗

A complete guide to Scoutlabs system, technology, guides, overviews, troubleshooting, etc. This is literally a complete guide to their system.

Two quick things:

- Enzo