Humanity has been practicing agriculture for over 20,000 years. Beginning in Mesopotamia, it developed independently across China, Egypt, Europe, and Central America. The observation of plant life cycles and the preservation and planting of seeds like wheat, barley, and lentils allowed nomadic tribes to transition into settled communities, eventually focusing on the technological improvement of farming.
This led to the birth of the first rudimentary tools, such as wooden ploughs and hoes, alongside the use of animals and the introduction of irrigation. Throughout history, agricultural innovations have always moved in tandem with scientific knowledge and technological progress, bringing wealth and well-being to society.
What is Precision Agriculture?
Agricultural production requires multidisciplinary scientific knowledge, as it involves a complex synergy between physical elements (soil, atmosphere, water) and biological elements (plants and pests). Considering that each of these elements has infinite variations based on geography, time, and natural evolution, it is increasingly necessary to monitor and intervene rapidly on as many production parameters as possible.
Precision Agriculture can be defined as a management strategy used to understand the variables that occur during farming practices, immediately identifying the interventions needed to optimize production. This approach originated in the 1970s with technologies derived from US control centers. It expanded through the microprocessors of the 1980s and the advantages of GPS in the 1990s—the decade when the term “Precision Farming” was officially coined during a workshop in Montana.
Why use Precision Agriculture?
Today, this agro-technological progress serves not only to meet the primary needs of a rapidly growing global population but also to ensure that food is healthier, more diverse, and produced sustainably.
What are the advantages of Precision Agriculture?
Using precision agriculture provides significant benefits in terms of production efficiency, higher product quality, reduced operational costs, and minimized environmental impact. Here are a few concrete examples:
- Automated ploughing and sowing: Optimizes soil preparation and seed quantity simultaneously, saving raw materials and labor.
- Smart Irrigation: Can be automated and coordinated with weather forecasts and soil conditions. By addressing the specific needs of different areas within a single crop, it saves water—a key strength of this technology.
- Targeted fertilization and pest control: Allows treatments to be restricted only to areas affected by pathogens, ensuring economic savings and significantly lower environmental pollution.
- Automated Harvesting: Identifies different ripening levels and manages the harvest according to weather conditions.
How does Precision Agriculture work?
In practice, precision agriculture develops through various operational phases based on three fundamental dogmas:
- Do the right thing: By acquiring and recording as much data as possible.
- At the right time: By interpreting and analyzing the collected data.
- In the right way: By managing interventions using the latest technology.
Once these three pillars are established, technology can be applied to farming in several ways:
Use of Sensors
Optical, infrared, and microwave sensors are used to characterize the soil, determining organic matter and water content. Visible or infrared light reflection sensors and electromagnetic induction sensors provide information on crop conditions, specifically nutritional levels and potential pathogen attacks.
Integration with Specific Software
Specialized software acquires, monitors, and processes data, providing operators with the information needed to decide on a field intervention strategy. These programs also allow operators to manage the intervention itself by remotely operating static or self-propelled machinery.
Precision Guidance
This technology controls the trajectory, field positioning, speed, and other parameters of agricultural machinery via GPS satellite systems. DGPS (Differential Global Positioning System) allows for real-time parameter calculation with high precision and no manual corrections. This ensures total field coverage by semi-autonomous machinery, with an estimated overlap of only about 10%.
Precision Agriculture in Italy: Current State of Affairs
In Italy, the Ministerial Decree of December 22, 2017, established guidelines for the development of precision agriculture. Coldiretti, based on data from the Smart AgriFood Observatory, estimates that precision agriculture in Italy could be worth more than €400 million.
Within two years, 10% of cultivated land is expected to utilize “Agriculture 4.0” technology. A concrete example is Demetra, an open and shared agricultural software available to all farmers, designed to manage:
- Production optimization.
- Reduction of business costs.
- Minimization of the environmental impact of seeds, fertilizers, and agrochemicals.
However, this innovation must go hand in hand with the digitalization of the country’s inland and mountainous areas, where broadband expansion is still lagging.
At Nanomnia, we share the core principles of precision agriculture: providing solutions where they are needed, when they are needed, and if they are needed. Our technology not only integrates perfectly with automation but also helps increase the effectiveness of treatments, reducing the quantity of agrochemicals required and eliminating the use of microplastics.