2018-08-29
Their second day visit started with a trip to Ghent, Belgium. There they met with ILVO to take a look at the dairy use case Grazing Cow Monitor and the meat use case Pig Farm Management. Monitoring grazing cows has the advantage that consumers get insights on animal welfare. Furthermore, dairy products made with milk from cows that enjoy outdoor grazing have a substantially better quality. The various IoT sensors employed at these use cases are provided by our partners from Sensolus. In a similar vein, pig farm management uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags attached to the animals to generate data and detect variations of individual animal’s behaviour during feeding and hydration. To prevent any external pathogenic agents entering the barn and despite the soaring temperatures, delegates were obliged to wear protective suits, which you can see in the second picture. Fortunately, they all accepted it with a big smile!
Afterwards, they moved to Sint-Oedenrode in the Netherlands to visit our dairy use case Happy Cow coordinated by ZLTO. This use case features sensors by Connecterra, which in combination with the expertise of Vetvice in data analysis, aim to maximise the health and welfare of animals and farmers alike, while guaranteeing the cost-effective production of top-quality food products. To reinforce the reputation of the Dutch cuisine abroad, the day ended with an enjoyable dinner in Wageningen with George Beers, IoF2020 Project Manager. Before continuing their journey to visit our use cases in Italy, they enjoyed a tour of the Wageningen University & Research (WUR) campus to get an impression of the current state of agricultural research in Europe.
After visiting the drought-affected northwestern part of Europe, a plane brought the delegation safe and sound to our vegetable use case working on an Enhanced Quality Certification System in Trento, in Northern Italy. This use case, developed by ValorItalia and the University of Almeria, supports the European protected designation of origin (PDO) that safeguards the quality of EU products, especially in foreign markets. By using augmented reality and QR-codes in wine barrels, information about the wine can easily be obtained by tablet or smartphone. The intelligent chain analyses relies on technologies and sensors from Coexphal and Cisco attached to the wine bottles to monitor the position or acceleration of the product. It goes without saying that a visit of our wine production included a wine degustation in addition to conversations spiced with sound technical expertise.
Their busy week ended with a trip to our Fresh Table Grapes Chain use case in Bari, in the Southern Italian region of Puglia. This use case leverages information on soil humidity, temperature and wind speed through sensors scattered throughout the field. Subsequently, the gathered data is analysed to alert farmers about the best time for irrigation and the exact amount of water required. This use case’s IoT system relies on Artificial Intelligence and Data Integration from SysMan, Synelixis and Pegasus, hence it becomes more efficient with each data sample gathered. Before we said goodbye to the Brazilian Delegation, the Mediterranean Institute Agronomic Institute (CIHEAM) of Bari summarized all the technologies used in our fruits use cases.
We were delighted to host our visitors from Brazil and sincerely hope that we have provided them with valuable information to support the Brazilian National IoT Plan throughout the next 5 years. Furthermore, we are looking forward to having a fruitful cooperation with Brazil as this country develops its immense agricultural resources and harnesses them with the latest technological innovations.
The programme of visits was sponsored and organized with the support of Sector Dialogues. Sector Dialogues are a cooperation instrument aimed at reinforcing the strategic partnership between the EU and Brazil.
*Article originally published on IoF2020 website.
https://www.iof2020.eu/latest/news/2018/08/a-brazilian-high-level-delegation-visits-iof2020
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