Farmdar, a startup from Cohort 8 of the National Incubation Center program, has secured a defining engagement with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which has asked the company to build an integrated evidence base for crop pattern planning, water allocation, and climate resilient agriculture. The work will focus on Punjab and Sindh, the two provinces that anchor Pakistan’s farm output and draw most heavily on its limited water resources. The incubation center shared the news with pride, describing it as an amazing achievement for a young company that is now bringing satellite and artificial intelligence intelligence into the planning of agriculture and water resources at a scale that directly shapes national food security.
Under the engagement, Farmdar will combine crop mapping, yield estimation, evapotranspiration, and water productivity analysis with water availability data and climate projections. Together, these layers are meant to show where current cropping patterns place pressure on scarce water, how much production is gained for each unit of water used, and how those relationships may shift as climate conditions change. The objective is to help the Food and Agriculture Organization and relevant stakeholders understand the trade offs between production and water use, and to evaluate alternative cropping patterns under future water and climate conditions. Rather than relying on a single snapshot, the analysis draws on historical records to explain how farming decisions in the two provinces have evolved over time.
A central part of the work is what the company calls what if scenario modelling, which allows decision makers to test different choices before committing to them in the field. By combining historical analysis with forward looking scenarios, the intelligence Farmdar produces is intended to support evidence based decisions on crop patterns, water allocation, and resource efficiency. It will also inform the design of more climate resilient agricultural policies and interventions, giving planners a clearer view of what each option could mean for farmers, for water supply, and for the broader economy. For a country where agriculture depends so heavily on a shared and increasingly uncertain water supply, grounding these choices in measured data rather than assumption is a meaningful step.
Farmdar framed the engagement around four questions that sit at the heart of agricultural planning: what to grow, where to grow it, how to use water more efficiently, and how to prepare for a changing climate. The company described these as consequential decisions for the future of agriculture and said it is proud to bring its expertise to the evidence that informs them. For the National Incubation Center program, the milestone shows a Cohort 8 startup moving from product development to work with a United Nations agency on one of the country’s most pressing planning challenges. It also reflects the growing role of technology led companies in agriculture, where satellite data and artificial intelligence are increasingly shaping how governments and international organizations understand land, water, and food production.
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