Intensive use of fertilizers and technologies is affecting the potential of the Earth. Agriculture has become more productive in the recent years as an effect of the growing number of active companies and exploited areas in the field, however the use of technologies that demand the maximum potential of the land could significantly affect the fertile agricultural area, and there is a great danger of desertification. One third of the land surface on Earth has fallen victim to desertification and according to the estimates, another 12 million hectares (approx. 30 million acres) more turn into barren deserts every year.
Plant diseases are another farming obstacle responsible for major economic losses in the agricultural industry worldwide. Monitoring plant health and detecting pathogen early are essential to reduce disease spread and facilitate effective management practices. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that plat diseases cause ~25% of crop failure. For example, enough rice to feed the entire population of Italy today is destroyed by rice blast disease every year.
On the contrary, the farming industry will become arguably more important than ever before in the next few decades. The world will need to produce 70% more food in 2050 than it did in 2016 in order to feed the growing population of the Earth, according to the UN FAO . To meet this demand, farmers and agricultural companies are turning to the Internet of Things for analytics and greater production capabilities.
There are several major drawbacks of existing Agro-IoT solutions today. Most of them require skills the average farmer would not necessarily have such as robotics and computer-based intelligence. Another limitation is price related. The agriculture is a very low margin sector and the willingness to pay of farmers for innovation is low. The existing solutions offer a relatively high price, ranging €3,000–€5,000. On the other hand, they are specialized for a sub-sector, such as orchards, greenhouses, vineyards or field crops. None of the currently existing market solutions is dedicated for all these crops together, making it inefficient for farmers growing variety of crops. In addition, the current automated solutions are rather rigid and unable to adapt to small farmers’ needs.
Precision farming and digital solutions are transforming European agriculture, making it both more competitive and more sustainable. The technology itself and farmers’ interaction with it, however, rely on seamless mobile connectivity – a challenge in many rural areas.
Using connected tools – such as satellites, GPS, drones and sensors – farmers can monitor and respond to their crops and animals’ precise needs. The accuracy, responsiveness and resource savings that precision farming makes possible are a critical step in ensuring farmers’ ability to sustainably provide for a growing population using diminishing resources and limited land.
Among the clients, Syswin Solutions identified the need to predict the risk of disease in cultures. Climate change brings many changes in the natural flows of plant development. Thus, it is necessary to adapt the knowledge about cultures. However, due to rapid changes and knowledge it must adapt at an alert pace. And from this point of view, only advanced technologies allow sufficiently rapid integration and adaptation, so that valuable time is not wasted and, consequently, years of non-productive crops are lost.
The general objective of the solution defined is to connect the experience in the field of plants from research organizations with the latest technology in the field of data acquisition, transmission and processing, from the area of competence of SYSWIN SOLUTIONS and the development of a real-time forecasting and warning system with potential for commercial exploitation as a product. The proposed integrated system is a hardware and software product for the operation and monitoring of crops, as well as the management of devices, data and models associated with diseases and pests. This system records, connects and manages the IoT devices and analyzes the environmental information and phenology of the harmful agents, ensures the efficient transfer of data from each IoT device and presents a high communication reliability, even in weak communication environments.
The SYSAGRIA_CROPALERT is generated by the need identified by Syswin, respectively the disease forecast for certain types of cultures, which ensures an applied response to the demands of the socio-economic environment, both at the level of Romania and at international level.
The secondary objectives of the future project are:
- Adapting and integrating the forecast equations on the new SYSAGRIA_CROPALERT system and demonstrating its functionality as an experimental model.
- Developing and demonstrating in industrial conditions (TRL 6), a prototype of the SYSAGRIA_CROPALERT system.
- Protecting intellectual property rights
