In response to the technological needs in today's agriculture, the Chilean Agricultural Research Institute (INIA) created the Precision Agriculture Program (Progap) in 2002, led by PhD agronomist Stanley Best. The Program emphasizes the use of information and emerging technologies to synthesize and deliver decision tools to improve farmer profitability. These activities often depend on the interaction of different systems: sensors, information and communication technologies (ICTs), image processing, analysis and statistical mathematical models and mechanical engineering, etc.

Newsletter

In this mission, Stanley Best, together with the agronomist Paula Vargas, also a researcher at Progap-INIA, have created the “Introduction to Precision Agriculture 4.0 Bulletin in blueberry orchards”, a document that will be available to producers and interested from next month.

The text consists of two volumes, which include everything related to the existing technological tools, the proper use of them, and the correct applications to achieve a better yield and quality of the fruit in the cultivation of blueberries.

Improvement of procedures

“The introduction of precision technologies within normal operations involves additional costs, the result is expressed in the reduction of operating costs, increased efficiency, improved product quality, and reduced negative environmental impact.

By using information technology efficiently, competitive advantages can be obtained, but correct procedures must be found to maintain these advantages. The generation and diffusion of technology are the engines of modern economic growth in sustainable agriculture, it is increasingly necessary to target a sustainable and more productive agriculture that can meet the local, regional and global food security challenges of the XNUMXst century ", says the text by way of introduction.

Contents

As the researchers assure, the key in this process is technology as a factor of production, thanks to the changes made in aspects such as the nature of the goods produced, markets and international competition. All this as a consequence of the increase in technology in goods and services, derived from scientific knowledge, advanced design concepts, artificial intelligence, automation, software, and biological discoveries, among others.

The bulletin covers various aspects of the production process and delves into them in its five chapters:

• Climate change driving technological introduction
• Understanding the problem of crop variability
• Yield and quality estimation
• Spatial and temporal information management programs
• New lines of innovation for adaptation to climate change through sustainable agriculture

Blueberry crops

Outreach

In the perspective of disseminating the advances of agriculture under the premises of sustainability and sustainability of the blueberry industry, in the 2021 issue of Blue Magazine An interview with the authors of this initiative was incorporated and the main aspects of Agriculture 4.0 and its application in the blueberry industry are addressed.

As the text says “we have to understand that precision agriculture will be the logical step in the agricultural digital transformation, where the necessary equipment is incorporated for the acquisition of data throughout the agri-food chain to later process them and generate the responses that are required to decision making. This data processing and analysis incorporating cloud computing, together with advanced analytics techniques (Big data and Artificial Intelligence) allows us to make decisions in real time. This enables us to make a more efficient use of resources, obtain healthier food and be able to know and adapt production to new trends in market demand almost immediately (production traceability), as well as the creation of resilience to climate change".