Data-driven Innovation and Smart Farming Services Supporting Organic Avocado Farming: Farmtopia’s 8th Practice Abstract
This is the eighth Practice Abstract developed in the scope of the Farmtopia project, authored by Project Coordinator Dionysios Solomos from NEUROPUBLIC.
Organic avocado farming faces significant sustainability challenges due to high production costs and increasing irrigation demands. Farmtopia SIP1 partnered with 7 smallholder organic avocado farmers in Chania (GR) and the tech provider (NEUROPUBLIC SA) to configure and deploy the “gaiasense” Smart Farming (SF) solution, specifically targeting the reduction of irrigation water consumption and fertilizer use.
Solution
The “gaiasense” system integrates multi-source data from field sensors, in-situ observations, farm calendars, and EO data to power advanced scientific models calibrated to each site’s conditions, generating tailored predictions and recommendations for optimal farming practices. 7 IoT stations were installed across the participating parcels, to address the region’s diverse microclimates and soil zones.
Iterative consultations with farmers helped to configure the SF solution for avocado cultivation, specifying user/functional requirements and refining irrigation and fertilisation predictive models. Additionally, the solution incorporated Farmtopia’s reusable SW components such as the “Data Exchange” module, enabling secure and standards compliant data sharing among cooperative members. This addition enriched the underlying dataset, further enhancing the accuracy of advice generated.
To ensure affordability for smallholders, the business model was tailored to prioritise collective service purchases through cooperatives and producer unions, enabling economies of scale. Under this scheme, the tech provider covers the costs of infrastructure and data modelling, with farmers paying only an annual service fee. Costs decrease further when agronomist services are covered by the cooperative.
Outcomes
The application of the smart farming solution throughout the full cultivation cycle of organic avocados resulted in the reduction of fertilizer usage by 74.3% and water consumption by 61.6%.
Practical Implementation
1. Encourage farmers to consistently record cultivation practices and maintain detailed farm logs. This ensures more timely and comprehensive data collection, leading to more accurate advice. Also, highlight the importance of using correct measurement units across variables to ensure the accuracy and relevance of data feeding the predictive models.
2. Stress the pivotal role of farm advisors in interpreting the generated advice and providing guidance to farmers for its effective implementation.
3. Promote sustainable business models based on cross-value chain collaboration, data sharing and fair benefit distribution. These models foster trust, cooperation, and the scalability of digital farming solutions.
Outlook
To ensure the accessibility and affordability of the smart farming solution, it is important to seek partnerships with farmer cooperatives and food companies to gain:
a) local agronomic support and
b) access to large numbers of farmers, achieving economies of scale.
You can find another nine Practice Abstracts in our next blog posts under the Newsroom section!