Project description
Pest management for effective Pheromone production
Pests, pathogens and weeds are responsible for annual losses of up to 40% in the field of agriculture. Pheromones have been already used for both effective control for both early alert of plagues and assisted plague control via mass trapping. However, a number of drawbacks prevent their wider use, including slow and expensive production methodologies, and time consuming monitoring. The EU-funded project Ecofarming Synergy, through Ferimark 2016, has developed ecoberSYNTHESIS that affords up to 82 % cheaper pheromones produced in Europe and a smart trap (ecoberTRAP) that drastically reduces farmers and public authorities’ visits to the field. The methodology used includes renewable energy and provides real time information to farmers and agricultural authorities via a mobile app.
Objective
With 12M farmers and workers, agriculture plays an important role in the EU. Pests, pathogens and weeds are responsible for annual losses of 26-40%. Increasing concerns on the effects of pesticides on the environment, and most importantly, on human health, plus the raise of organic agriculture, result in an increased use of insect pheromones for both early-alert of plagues and assisted plague control via mass trapping. Pheromones have been already used for both pest monitoring and control, but a number of drawbacks prevent their wider use: slow and expensive production methodologies; and time consuming monitoring by existing traps (frequent visits to the fields needed). Ferimark 2016 provides: up to 82% cheaper pheromones produced in Europe and a smart trap which reduces farmers and public authorities visits to the field down to 1/6 of the current ones, which uses renewable energy and provides real time information to farmers and agricultural authorities via a mobile app. Ferimark 2016 developed and validated, ecoberSYNTHESIS, a novel synthesis method for fast and cost-effective (up to 82% cheaper compared to reported methodologies) production of a wide variety of pheromones; and designed ecoberTRAP, a novel IoT ready smart trap which reduces field visits down to 1/6, saving time and costs to end-users which uses our pheromones. Therefore, our holistic solution offers both pest early-alert, control, and monitoring and pheromone production under the same SME provider. During SMEInst-1, the SME will apply ecoberSYNTHESIS to the production of new pheromones and their certification, and will validate ecoberTRAP at European level (which also uses Ferimark 2016 very own pheromones produced in Europe) via new field tests. An elaborated business plan will be produced together with a route to SMEInst-2. As a result, following our circa 200 existing clients, the SME´s business plan shows €50.16M sales by 2023.
Fields of science
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetinternet of things
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagricultureagronomyplant protection
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energy
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculturesustainable agriculture
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
38530 LAS CALETILLAS-CANDELARIA
Spain
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.