Context
The pilot test case in Greece, will take place in Pella Municipality, Central Macedonia Prefecture and with Agricultural Cooperative of Pella (ACP) as piloting user. ACP is the 3rd largest cooperative in Greece and has over 10.000 active members growing different type of crops including orchards, cotton and cereals in a total area of 60.000 ha, with the most important being peaches. ACP owns an 8,193m2 Modern Canning Industry and its peach production is exported all over the world.
ACP is a pioneer cooperative in Greece regarding the adoption and usage of new technologies for agricultural sector. ACP started using GIS and Earth Observation tools as early as 2003, for the development of an Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) and has participated in a national project related to its implementation in Greece. In addition, it is the first cooperative in Greece that used Earth Observation tools for crop identification and area estimation in 2004. Moreover, since 2004, the ACP has created its own GIS geodatabase for keeping track of changes of crop types and yields of every field in the area on an annual base.
Challenge
As part of ACP’s continuous investment in new technologies, ACP focuses on applying Precision Agriculture across their entire production cycle. Their first successful introduction in PA was achieved though MYAGROAPP H2020 project (“Advisory platform for small farms based on earth observation”), where EO data was used to manage their arable crops. However, EO products and UAV data cannot provide accurate results in orchards crops due to tree canopy shape.
Piloting focus
AgriBIT’s pilot will therefore focus on GNSS technologies able to work even in “GPS-unfriendly” environments like orchard fields. A GNSS system that can work seamlessly, able to retrieve data from on-the-go sensors and UGV’s, and provide advices for managing their production, will help them improving their yields and increasing their products quality.