MAIPO RIVER BASIN, Chile — Under a blazing sun in this drought-stricken Andean valley, a Chilean agronomist and a farm worker examined moist soil from a freshly dug pit among rows of almond trees.

The agronomist detected excess moisture 15 inches below the surface and advised adjusting the irrigation schedule to improve water efficiency: two 10-hour sessions weekly instead of one 20-hour stretch.

“Ideally, it would be best to split irrigation into two sessions and space them out a bit,” said Pía González to the farmer.

Felipe Pereira, who runs the farm at the foothills of the snow-capped Andes, agreed to act after the cherry harvest in a few weeks, when more workers would be available. González logged her recommendation on an online platform using Microsoft technology with hundreds of data points about the plot — the centerpiece of a pioneering solution helping farmers decide how and when to irrigate.

González works at Kilimo, a water stewardship platform operating in seven countries in the Americas — including the U.S., Mexico and Chile — that collaborates with farmers to optimize agricultural water use and help companies advance their water security goals.

Its tool combines satellite images, weather and soil data, field advice and evapotranspiration estimates, which measure the amount of water lost from plants and the environment to the atmosphere. It recommends weekly irrigation levels while allowing staff to monitor plots and confirm water savings almost in near real time.

“The aim is to put more thought into the orchard — precision agriculture,” explained Pereira, a young farm manager passionate about bringing data and science to an industry that has been mostly informal and unstructured for too long.

Kilimo says the strategy is working. According to Kilimo, the three-year irrigation management project involving Pereira’s farm and 10 others has saved 60 million cubic feet of water in the Maipo River basin, one of the world’s most stressed waterways supplying Santiago, Chile’s capital, and the country’s farm heartland.

A separate drip irrigation initiative saved 14 million cubic feet for a total of 74 million cubic feet of water — enough to supply 10,000 households in Santiago in a year, according to Kilimo. 

Jairo Trad, CEO of Kilimo, calls it a win-win: farmers cut water use and costs, improve margins and earn annual incentives once savings are verified against a baseline using rigorous methodology. Communities benefit from reduced water waste, while Kilimo secures funding for future projects by proving results to corporate partners. These, in turn, meet water-security goals with verified, auditable outcomes.

“Water for agriculture is essentially free … The challenge was to give value to water,” said Trad.

Next step: An agentic monitoring system

Monitoring, reporting and verifying water efficiency results is essential for Kilimo, not only to provide reliable data but also to secure the funding needed to scale its water management model across the region. These operations run on Microsoft Azure.

“For us, that’s what matters most … the importance of measuring impact,” Trad adds.

The company has developed a centralized reporting ecosystem in partnership with Microsoft using Microsoft Foundry to integrate several AI tools, including models from Azure OpenAI, and featuring three specialized agents.

One is for general balance information, another for project tracking and a third for managing contractual data by client to ensure confidentiality and prevent data overlapping. The agents allow users to obtain consolidated answers without searching across multiple sources.

The solution also incorporates Microsoft Document Intelligence to analyze contracts and streamline internal processes. A coordinating super agent integrates responses from the three agents and delivers centralized information to the user. For now, the system is used internally but Kilimo plans to soon make it available to financing partners through a reporting platform where they can track projects.

The Maipo River water management projects, created in partnership with Microsoft, marked a turning point for the company, Trad said. Kilimo has since secured over $25 million in contracts to restore 1.4 billion cubic feet of water — enough to fill over 10,000 Olympic-size pools — across 15 watersheds from Chile to the U.S., transforming both the company and the water conservation sector.

Founded in 2014 by Trad and Juan Carlos Abdala, both computer engineers, Kilimo grew out of lessons learned from an earlier startup and set its sights on tackling one of agriculture’s biggest challenges: efficient irrigation and water management.

The Maipo River basin was an ideal target: The region faces an “extremely high” risk of water stress, according to the World Resources Institute, supplying 80% of Santiago’s water, which accounts for 40% of Chile’s population and gross domestic product (GDP). After 14 consecutive years of drought until 2022, according to the country’s environmental ministry, rising average temperatures persist.

Technology and human touch

Rosario Gumucio, Kilimo’s project manager in the Maipo, explained that farmers have tended to overwater their crops, often erring on the side of caution due to the low cost of water. Kilimo’s founders had an idea: to use technology to provide irrigation recommendations to farmers and then measure, monitor and report water usage.

To help farmers manage irrigation plans, Kilimo collects land samples, satellite images for each plot every 60 hours and meteorological data for the next three days to calculate evapotranspiration rates. It then issues precise irrigation recommendations to ensure that the available water in the soil always remains above 40%, or sometimes higher, depending on the crop.

Farmers receive weekly, monthly and annual plans on their devices, and Kilimo monitors progress. If something goes wrong, an alert is sent and an agronomist follows up. On average, users have reduced water usage by 15%-20%, Kilimo said.

Farmers submit irrigation records regularly, which Kilimo verifies through field visits. Water savings are measured by comparing current irrigation using Kilimo’s technology to the average water use over the preceding three years, adjusting for rainfall against a set baseline. Farmers are then rewarded for effective irrigation. Pereira’s farm, for instance, received $5,000 last year for its efforts to save water.

The irrigation calculations happen inside Azure Kubernetes Service, a secure environment that helps manage and scale the software that powers Kilimo’s recommendations. All the information — such as water usage records and project results — is kept in Azure Blob Storage, a service designed to safely store large amounts of data so it’s easy to access when needed.  

Alongside data, direct human interaction is essential for earning farmers’ trust, explained Gumucio. Agronomists regularly visit farms to discuss irrigation advice and build consensus with them. “We’re trying to change a centuries-old practice, so empathy and tact are crucial,” she said.

Saving water and fertilizer

Pereira’s farm, Agricola San José, stretches its almond and cherry orchards across a lush valley dotted with poplars and palm trees. In the past, farmers relied on guesswork, watering by sight or simply following what their neighbors were doing, he said.

Six months into the Kilimo project, Pereira became the farm’s administrator and soon noticed some plots were overwatered. One day, the owner urged him to irrigate the fields for an entire day. “No,” Pereira told him, “Let’s wait, evapotranspiration remains low.” He convinced the owner to hold off.

Efficiency improved: By October, his plots saved 1.9 million cubic feet of water compared to the baseline, a sharp turnaround from January, when usage had exceeded it.

“Most likely, we will be facing a drought soon. Water may be cheap today, but tomorrow it can be expensive,” remarked Pereira with a shrug.

Nearby, nestled among barren hills, owner and manager Juan Pablo Correa shared a similar experience. In the past, he overwatered his groves of walnut and lemon trees mostly by relying on intuition. Tracked records were minimal or inexistent. Correa was initially skeptical, but after working with Kilimo, water use per hectare during peak irrigation months dropped 40%, to 353,000 cubic feet from 2022 to 2025.

“I implement their recommendations approximately 90% of the time. [Technology] is a good complement,” Correa said. He occasionally finetunes based on labor availability or unexpected pruning, or if he sees an unusually dry patch of soil.

Juan Ortega, manager of Lo Herrera farm, joined a specialized drip irrigation program for his grape and plum orchards. Through this initiative, Kilimo helped install modern drip irrigation equipment, covering half the cost while reimbursing farmers later for their contribution.

With Kilimo installing Ortega’s flow meter, irrigation data is automatically added to their monitoring platform for easy water savings verification. In October, Ortega’s water use dropped by 85%, with him consuming just 32,000 cubic feet per hectare compared to the previous year.

“I now use half of the farm’s available water; previously, I had to stop irrigating,” Ortega said. By mixing fertilizer into the water, he has also cut fertilizer use by 30%. “This is fantastic for us,” a joyful Ortega pointed out. “We’re saving tons of money and supplies.”

Like many farmers in the region, Pereira, Correa and Ortega export most of their produce to international markets during the winter months in the northern hemisphere. Chile is one of the world’s top exporters of fresh fruit, selling about $7.5 billion globally in 2024, according to Chile’s government.

“Exporting fruit is basically exporting water, and we must value each drop,” asserted Gumucio.