Research and innovation projects to unlock sustainability, digitalisation and automation in agriculture are helping enterprises in the industry to make more informed decisions and be more competitive. That’s the view of the Eurecat technology centre outlined today, 9 September, on World Agriculture Day.

Nowadays “competitiveness involves applied knowledge and developing innovative solutions drawing on disruptive technologies,” notes Gabriel Anzaldi, Eurecat’s Director of Scientific and Technological Development. In his view, “the convergence of multiple enabling technologies, including artificial intelligence, social and environmental sciences, biotechnology, agricultural automation and robotics and many more, is inescapably essential in addressing the complex challenges we are facing in the industry.”

Against this backdrop, “Eurecat is working to hybridise these numerous technologies with a view to affording new opportunities for agricultural businesses to tackle efficiency, quality, productivity and sustainability challenges by helping to develop a participatory and unrestricted ecosystem for the food industry while also being mindful of its close ties with other sectors,” he says.

These technologies “help to improve farming operations so that they can meet the challenges they face which range from enhancing the quality of products and their contribution to the circular economy to the subsequent stages of the value chain by streamlining use of agricultural resources,” adds Ignasi Papell, head of the Food Business at Eurecat. They can also assist with “ensuring traceability and conveying it properly to consumers and being highly efficient across the production, processing and distribution value chain in a sector which is strategic for the economy.”

An example in this area is the SCORPION project where Eurecat is involved in developing modular autonomous robots which add value to small agricultural equipment by automating and streamlining spraying operations, using innovative ecological methods and reducing downtime costs, soil compaction and human exposure to chemicals.

“The modular design used by the project supports function scalability and allows the robots to perform tasks such as pruning and harvesting while still being compatible with interoperability standards in agriculture,” points out Daniel Serrano, director of Eurecat’s Robotics and Automation Unit. Eurecat is developing and embedding state-of-the-art algorithms in autonomous localisation and mapping for unstructured and variable terrain. The consortium is coordinated by the INESC Science and Technology Centre and involves 11 partners from four European countries.

Eurecat is also the leader in Spain for agROBOfood, a European Digital Innovation Hubs network designed to drive and fast-track effective uptake of robotics and artificial intelligence technologies in the agri-food industry. Here it mentors small and medium-sized enterprises which receive funding for high-value technology projects in the network’s Open Calls.

Another outstanding initiative in this area is the VitiGEOSS consortium, coordinated by Eurecat and funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme. Eurecat’s Applied Artificial Intelligence unit is heading and taking part in a range of activities involving analysis of satellite data and sensors installed in fields and on equipment. The goal is to “deploy new services for agronomic prescription, resource optimisation and indicator calculation which enhance vineyard management by helping to handle irrigation, fertilisation, pest control and sustainability,” says Xavier Domingo, director of the technology centre’s Applied Artificial Intelligence unit.

Agricultural robotics solutions for crop protection

Another key project is Robs4Crops, designed to address and meet organisational and technological challenges associated with the widespread uptake of robotic farming. To do this it builds on existing agricultural equipment, standards and best practices to devise and deliver a fully autonomous system ready for large-scale commercial trials. “Robs4Crops demonstrates that robotics can bring precision to a range of repetitive tasks, thus reducing the need for farmers to engage in unpleasant or unhealthy work,” notes Daniel Serrano.

The new robotic farming solution unlocked as part of the project will be demonstrated on a pilot scale across four European countries and consists of three core components: smart tools, autonomous vehicles and the farming controller. The consortium leading Robs4Crops involves Eurecat’s Robotics and Automation Unit together with another 15 partners from eight European countries coordinated by Wageningen University & Research.

The development of an autonomous robot equipped with a mobile manipulator to distribute pheromone dispensers for automatic biocontrol of insect pests in vineyards is the outcome of the European Grape project, funded by the European Commission as part of the ECHORD++ project. Eurecat has helped to build this platform which also makes it possible to monitor the health of the crop through a range of sensors to gather images and other plant data such as the colour of the leaves and grapes or the vegetation index.

Another booming area of activity is recovery of plant by-products and farm improvements as evidenced by projects such as PREDIVI which seeks to enhance decision-making about wine harvests by tapping big data.