Introduction
In this Module you will learn the choice and use of water digital technologies supporting a CSA approach highlighting their practical function.
You will particularly learn:
9.1 Digital technologies within the Green Deal perspective
9.2 Kinds of digital technologies supporting the CSA
9.3 Impact of digital technologies on CSA concept and practice
9.4 Sustainable smart farming and digital transition
9.5 Digital Technologies and CSA good practices
Background knowledge and examples will be provided as a practical and tailored approach implementing the competences needed for a rational choice and use of digitally supported machineries, equipment and data collection according to the principles and acting of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA).
Impact of digital technologies on CSA concept and practice
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated even more the importance to provide education and work users with effective digital communication systems avoiding waste time and stand-by within the knowledge supply chain. DSS, intended as online available software tools to manage decisions and digitally controlled machinery and implements, are fundamental at this stage for a step forward to Agriculture 4.0 in Europe. It means bridging the digital gap in rural areas by investing in broadband and giving farmers the opportunity to invest in the digital future. Digital education and training must accompany this technological process by involving farmers as the rest of the society, especially young people. In the next planning 2021-2027 the EU institutions have announced significant amounts of funding focused on a Digital Agenda, mostly included within the Digital Europe Program (DEP) aimed to strengthen a network of European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH).
Recent Training Needs Analysis (TNA) reports (EIP-AGRI, New skills for digital farming, February 2020) demonstrated that there is an increasing demand of online courses targeted to digital competences, as in the case of smart farming can be Internet of Things (IoT) connected to field good practices and use of software enabling farmers to control soil tillage and fertilization, treatments of crop diseases and pests and harvesting time depending on weather, soil and plant growth conditions for a more sustainable agriculture.
The high specialization of field vegetable farming has stressed the importance of the most advanced technological solutions corresponding to the farmer needs for more sustainable, effective and precise phytosanitary treatments. Digital technologies improving sustainability and effectiveness of performances are available on the market with offer of more and more automated and user-friendly machineries and equipment interconnected through network systems by use of Apps on PC, Tablet or Smartphone.
Digital technologies based on Precision Agriculture (PA) are strategic for CSA, due to specialization high level of the cultivations and rate of labor currently needed with consequent potential health risks deriving from human presence i.e. during the use of pesticides. The combined goal of reducing pesticides and increasing work, food and environment safety is possible when based on PA criteria. What farmers need is the availability of broadband to use all potential of digital technologies, easy-to-use machinery, equipment and software for the automation of the agricultural production phases as much as possible, reasonable costs for feasible purchase justified by excellent performances and financing available for investments in digital technologies.
Those conditions are in line with the new CAP Programme 2021-2027 stating that 40% of CAP expenditure will be dedicated to the Green Deal goals and fostering digital technologies as means to reduce energy sources consumption, carbon footprint, pollution by chemicals and soil degradation, as well as with the Green Deal fixing the goals of a new strategy for the European Union towards a fair and prosperous society with a modern, resource efficient and competitive economy cutting GHG emissions and becoming the first climate-neutral society within 2050.
Kinds of digital technologies supporting the CSA
Studies demonstrated that only 50% of the treatment effectiveness is related to the chemicals, while the remaining part is related to deciding when, what and how to treat. Farming can become more efficient and sustainable by applying techniques from sensors, drones and robotics in the optimization of fertilization, irrigation, treatments and achieving an effective soil/plant coverage reducing chemicals use and saving water. Tractor is still considered the most suitable machinery option fort field treatments, since it can carry a sprayer treating multiple rows at the same time. Weather, soil and crop data control can help perceive the current state of the plant and decide the treatment based on predictive data driven models.
ISOBUS is currently the most used system to program and manage the equipment according to data control and adapt settings to the conditions found by checking weather forecast, soil, crop, irrigation and field data.
Sensors helps not just to limit i.e. use of fertilizers or pesticides, but also to keep a good soil structural condition that is so important to maintain infiltration capacities and is a fundamental aspect of Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC).
Similarly, agronomic good practices that encourage rapid and complete ground cover, reduce the expose of bare soils and risk of capping on silty soils.
Crops need a good soil fertility and right amount of water on the ground that can be controlled by use of sensors, sending data to a software analyzing them, that are essential to take the decision and maintain a balanced amount of humidity that could induce the proliferation of cryptogams.
Plant health is the prerequisite for a good harvest and data controlling from the field and from the weather forecast helps limit useless excessive irrigation and chemicals.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) also called drones can provide with all field information adding further data to those provided by field sensors with a general overview on weeds and potential development of pathologies.
Open field permanent or seasonal crops include a lot of species, with very different water needs and healthcare. Water and soil are key factors to be preserved from pollution that could come i.e. from the incorrect use of chemicals.
Precision Agriculture (PA) can provide producers with all kinds of digital technologies combining produce quality and quantity under agricultural good practices, best environmental and healthy crop conditions. Agricultural machinery, tractors, equipment and irrigation systems are still the core farming tools, but more recently the digital technologies are changing the scenario of future Climate Smart Agriculture, based on Decision Support System as elaboration of data collection from the field through sensors and drones.
A mix of soil analysis, yield mapping and remote sensors can contribute to DSS optimizing field irrigation and treatments. A healthy soil, rich in nutrients and well worked and properly irrigated with precision technologies favoring fertility, is a pre-condition to strength crops and limit pesticides.
In the greenhouse at the centre of the sensor and software supply systems there is the Decision Support System (DSS), which allows to increase effectiveness analysis and consequently optimization of choices to be taken. This is a monitoring and control tool complete that guarantees the flexibility of the implementation thanks to the modular architecture customizable according to specific needs.
Based on the choice of sensors and actuators installed, the DSS offers various management services and microclimate control photograph for the greenhouse and in real time it detects the thermo-hygrometric data by analyzing and processing them and intervening automatically with alert on specific risk cases for the plants.
The DSS are modular, transmit data wirelessly, are easy to use and are provided with self-diagnosis of malfunctions, also managing energy saving and other interconnected and twinned factors.
Digital technologies within the Green Deal perspective
Sustainable intensification (SI) is a pathway traced by combining productivity and sustainability fixing a concept suitable for the objectives after a 50-year CAP (European Commission, 2012) .
This concept has been developed by scientists as an agricultural production increased in a sustainable manner (Buckwell, 2014) and as sustainability of crop intensification (Bonari, 2014);
In the years after this process is highlighted as a knowledge-based new way: “Transition towards ecological intensification in agriculture is a knowledge intensive process that should not be perceived as the promotion of old traditional practices” (Caron et al., 2014) and “The ‘sustainable intensification‘ (SI) approach and ‘climate smart agriculture’ (CSA) are highly complementary” (Campbell, 2014).
Climate Smart Agriculture is identified as a new paradigm for access to safe, high-quality, economically and environmentally sustainable, nutritious and diverse food added value, with evaluation of carbon foot print, water foot print, and social foot print, contributing to smart agriculture, producing ‘more with less’.
All these concepts and developments bring at the same time to the Green Deal objectives as a condition for the new Common Agricultural Policy, and to the digital technologies as fundamental tools.
The future of farming is being shaped by ongoing research, innovation, and capacity building in the agri-food sector, which is supported by various multi-financial framework initiatives aimed to connect sustainability with innovation, such as Horizon Europe Cluster 6 and Digital Europe Programme.
The two Programmes respectively aim to:
Digital Technologies and CSA good practices
The digital transition in agriculture includes all those socio-technological processes that accompany the introduction and use of digital technologies and lead to changes in interactions within the agro-rural system. The long-term implications of the digital transition depend on how these processes are managed.
Digital technologies and connectivity offer enormous potential. They can ensure more efficient and sustainable agricultural and food production and represent key elements for improving the quality of life and ensuring balanced development in rural areas. However, digitalization does not in itself guarantee positive outcomes, as it can give rise to new challenges and vulnerabilities. For this reason, public support should be managed to orient this process towards the development of sustainable agri-food systems and rural communities that are stronger, interconnected and resilient.
The digital transition will take place in a continuously changing context, characterized by many challenges coming from climate change, environmental degradation, geopolitical instability, changes in supply channels and the evolution of market demand. This is why we need agriculture and rural areas able to face them and ready for changes besides adaptation and mitigation capacity.
A study by JRC (Barabanova and Krzysztofowicz, Digital Transition: Long-term Implications for EU Farmers and Rural Communities , 2023) in close collaboration with DGAGRI seeks a strategy that brings together the existing interaction between digital transition, policies and resilience in the agricultural sector and rural areas, focusing on some possible changes in view of the transformation.
The broader purpose that digital transition processes are called to pursue includes the ability of agriculture and rural areas to cope with shocks and continue along the path of systemic transformation (resilience), the transition towards more sustainable production models (green transition) , the ability to actively participate within society through the use of digital technology (digital citizenship) and the well-being of people, improving working conditions, access to services and infrastructure and strengthening social ties.
In this context it is clear that it is not possible to guide the digital transition in agriculture by programs designed around the table, but rather that it is necessary to involve the agricultural world more deeply in the choice of good practices in the introduction of digital technologies capable of combining sustainability, productivity and resilience of the agriculture and food businesses and supply chain sector.
Sustainable smart farming and digital transition
Agriphotovoltaics, also known as agrivoltaics and agri-pv, consists of the production of renewable energy on agricultural land, without consuming soil and without taking away productive spaces from agriculture and livestock farming.
The use of solar panels is envisaged which, due to their technical and physical characteristics, allow underlying agricultural work and animal grazing, respecting and encouraging the various activities.
The photovoltaic modules, in fact, are installed at a height from the ground that allows you to comfortably carry out the usual cultivation practices, while reducing water demand and thermal stress on the crops thanks to the protection and shading offered by the panels.
peaking about kinds of solar panels, they are installed mainly in rural areas with heights and geometries that allow the usual agricultural and livestock activities to be carried out below and between the surfaces. The agri-pv system also finds application in various contexts:
- water basins;
- marginal, abandoned or degraded areas;
- buildings and rural buildings for instrumental use.
his innovative type of photovoltaic system also finds space in the context of energy communities, with relevant benefits, such as:
- preservation of land for agricultural and livestock use;
- plant support function;
- rainwater regulation;
- shading generated by solar panels, which, as mentioned, reduces water demand and thermal stress on crops;
- protection of crops from hail, bad weather, precipitation, and extreme climatic conditions.
On the other side the landscape impact of the agri-pv panels should be evaluated and not allowed in protected natural areas and significant cultural landscapes.
A new frontier to reduce chemicals and contribute to this strategic Green Deal objective, is constituted of experimental use of ultraviolet (UV) rays effective against some cryptogams. The germicidal effects of UV radiation on pathogens is well known in literature (Allen et al. 1998, Caldwell et al. 1999, etc.). In particular, UV-B (wavelength spectrum between 280 nm and 315 nm) is effective to kill bacteria and fungi, whilst UV-C (wavelength spectrum between 100 nm and 279 nm) is also effective to reduce viruses, in addiction to bacteria and fungi.
The first experiments on use of UV radiation to inhibit some plant pathologies, mainly on grapevine powdery mildew (Uncinula necator), were performed in the USA since 1990, based on promising trials (Michaloski, A.J. 1991), but rates necessary to suppress grapevine also unacceptably damaged foliage (David M. Gadoury et al., 1992). In 2010 when a research in Norway demonstrated that by applying UV at night, much lower doses could be used to suppress pathogens (Suthaparan, A., Stensvand, A. et al. 2012) solving the issue of plant damage at the high UV doses required for daytime applications.
The combined use of UV radiation and foliar treatments based on conservation farming practices can set up a model decreasing the use of chemicals, soil depletion and GHG emissions and increase productivity, quality and sustainability.
Conclusions
Digital technologies are closely linked to the possibility of reducing the use of chemical products, greenhouse gas emissions and watering, while at the same time they can increase the productivity of crops and the competitiveness of farms.
At the same time, research is advancing to counter the effects of climate change and going beyond the mitigation and adaptation of crops by seeking more sustainable and resilient production alternatives.
It is therefore necessary to seek widespread and feasible use of digital technologies for small and medium-sized farms, making smart machineries and equipment and decision support systems more widespread and accessible.
Quiz
Assignment
- Describe what is intended for agriphotovoltaics.
- Please motivate the importance of of using digital technologies in terms of:
- reducing chemicals
- saving energy and water
- decreasing gas emissions and carbon footprint
- improving farm productivity
References
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EC-Earth: FAO, 2016: State of Food and Agriculture – Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, Rome.
IPCC, 2019: Rapporto Speciale Cambiamento Climatico e Suolo Special Report Climate Change and Land – ipcc.ch/rccl
MED-GOLD: med-gold.eu/it/home-page-it
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