They develop innovations in irrigation management and control of lobesia
The R & D Center of the telecommunications company is already testing a model that will tell the producer, via telephone, when and how long to water, and also advances in a system for counting the population of vine moths to make more efficient control.
Control of Lobesia botrana, efficient irrigation and traceability are all terms linked to the agri-food sector. Therefore, when Hernán Orellana, executive director of the R & D Center of Telefónica, says that they are investigating these issues, the question is immediate: What does a telecommunications company invest in developments for agriculture?
Orellana says that the center was born from the invitation that Corfo made to R & D centers from different parts of the world to settle in Chile to work on finding technological solutions to problems in priority areas for the country.
«Telefónica has had an R&D area for 25 years, but it was oriented towards technology for the business. However, it did not have any R&D center in Latin America and they wanted to do something here. Corfo put together a very attractive instrument - two-thirds of the financing - to attract research and development centers to the country and we found it an interesting challenge. "So, it emerged with the objective of, over a four-year horizon, to help, from the Internet of Things, to solve specific problems of productivity, efficiency and recover elements that had been lost over time, in the national industry."says Hernán Orellana.
And for this they chose three key areas for the country: mining, due to its impact on imports; agriculture, for the desire to make Chile an agri-food power, especially in healthy foods; and cities, "which was more of our suggestion, since Santiago, like other large cities, is suffering the rigors of growth and being unfriendly to its inhabitants"says Orellana.
The challenge, says Orellana, is that the results can be commercially scaled, especially since the company opted for the business with a term of four years. In other words, if in that period there are no developments that result in income, the project would have to be rethought. «This is an undertaking and, as such, it must be demonstrated that it will have some result. This is not philanthropy, but seeking some economic return.", he emphasizes. And they have already started some projects, especially in irrigation, control of Lobesia botrana (or grapevine moth), crop forecast and monitoring of fresh export products.
Analysis from technology
The first was to determine the areas with the opportunity to solve problems using technology, says the specialist.
They selected two: precision agriculture, in which technology could control different variables of the production process, and traceability, which can open new markets or expand the supply of products.
«In precision agriculture we have found that there are certain attributes such as, for example, being able to predict what the yield of a certain crop will be long before it is harvested. This can be a very important tool for negotiating volumes and prices. Another area that is developed in parallel is traceability. In this there are a series of opportunities that arise from the needs of the productive process and the markets. Carbon footprints, water footprints, compensation, traceability of origin», Explica.
It refers to what is sought to develop specific tools, which would increase the value of exports.
«For example, countries like Japan are interested in buying fresh pork. But it is complex, because it has a very short duration at the point of sale. There we are seeing the possibility of having a control and management tool for the entire chain, from when it leaves the processing plant until it reaches the destination. "This considers including permanent monitoring and the possibility that those who have a direct relationship with the entire chain can use this tool to make the process more efficient in all its areas and thus offer the client a product that is eminently technological.", says Orellana.
He adds that the idea is to do something similar with fresh fruit; That is, predict, monitor and manage each stage of the process online, including transportation, and even allow the exporter and owner of the fruit to intervene in the container in the event of any alteration of the cold chain, for example. «This is a project, which at some point we are going to start. And we want to cross it with other logistics initiatives that we are working on », he says.
Irrigation model and counting of moths
Once defined the areas in which they would work with agriculture, they began to spin thinner. Thus, it was like in precision agriculture they opted for water. «Regardless of the agricultural area where you are, water is going to be more scarce every day and is a more valuable commodity. So, today I need to make a survival strategy to keep my crops or animals alive."says Orellana. They then began to investigate in a development that combines existing technologies, such as humidity and temperature sensors, with weather stations and online information.
«The vision is relatively simple. We want to make it available to the 250 thousand small and medium-sized farmers, who have an average of 2 to 3 hectares each, and where the majority irrigate by availability of the resource and by sense of smell. So, we are using a combination of sensors, which are as cheap as possible, plus a nearby, high-precision weather station, to develop a model that tells the farmer when and for how long he has to water. To this model, which today has two variables, components will be added, such as type and stage of crop development, fertilizers, plant size and growth rate, among others..
The prototypes are already being tested in different fields and they hope to have them in the middle of the year in productive and commercial stage. "The idea is that tomorrow a producer can go to where he usually acquires his inputs, buy the sensors at a very low cost and install them himself, and can make decisions from what he sees on the phone.", he emphasizes.
The above will complement it with what he calls deep apprenticeship. «The aim is for the prototype to be able to learn and obtain certain information from images, and that allows making future forecasts. Today we work with images of crops in the early stage and the prototypes are learning to count the fruit and use that information as an additional input to predict what size and caliber the fruit from that tree will be., account.
In this they will use the new tools available, such as drones, so that this is the one that registers the images in a few passes on a crop: «The objective is to recognize at an early stage the number of fruits on a tree and thus estimate production».
A similar technology is what they intend to develop to count technologically the number of moths of the vine or Lobesia botrana present in an orchard. «We want to count the moth in real time. For that we have learned how it moves, what its cycle is. This would make its control more efficient.", emphasizes.
The Lobesia project is in the stage of capturing images. «We need many images so that the model learns to count on its own. You have to train it", He says.
The other challenge is to have a trap or a scanner system that allows counting more efficiently. They did a contest that delivered a prize of 10 thousand dollars to develop their prototypes.
«We are not interested in being experts in cheating, but rather in the result that that information produces. Sensors, platforms, are enabling technologies. We take that information and generate knowledge. So, we are inviting companies that have sensor developments, fruit counting, soil analysis, anyone who has some type of physical sensor, to work with us, because we use that technology to generate knowledge."he insists.
Way of working
The first thing for the landing on agricultural issues was to detect which needs could be solved with new technologies.
«For that we are talking to many farmers. Because what we are trying to develop is done by working with those who have the pain. It is they who are asked what their problems are. The key here is how technology is applied to solve them. For that we have to make a list of them. On the other hand, there is technology and you have to find where both meet. To do this, we have hired a couple of people who know about the subject and we have been combining to work.", explains Orellana.
He also emphasizes that collaboration is key to innovation. «Those who do not use open innovation technology are much less likely to be successful than those who go their own way»He says.
Hence the call to those in different fields to participate in these developments. «It is very difficult for any actor in any of the components to have the capacity to solve the problem comprehensively, because when the levels of complexity are higher, greater sophistication is required. The problems to be solved in agriculture are complex and that complexity forces us to work together. Hence we are working with FDF, Asoex, SAG, Meteorology, Blueberry Committee... With everyone who can contribute to this construction of value», he adds.
Source: Revista del Campo
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