Projects
Here’s a list of the projects I’ve followed over the past four years:
Mo.Re Farming - a MOnitornig & REmote system for a MORE sustainable farming 🚜
The Mo.Re Farming project aimed to develop a platform for the collection and management of spatial and farm data, to provide the user (technician or farmer) with information to support decision-making and promote more sustainable farming techniques, such as site-specific management (precision farming).
Nutrivigna 🍇
The Nutrivigna project, aimed to improve the nutrient efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of wine production, through the development and dissemination of different tools:
- innovative techniques of spectral observation from proximity (optical sensors mounted on operating machines) and from remote (drones and earth observation satellites) for the determination of mineral requirements;
- advanced web services for the nutritional balance integrated with procedures for “mapping” the areas of the vineyard with different nutritional needs;
- definition of vineyard management systems with low environmental impact.
Here are some results are shown during the final conference held on 31-05-2018
Positive - Scalable Operational Protocols for precision agriculture 💧
The Positive project had the following objectives:
- to establish a stable service, with coverage at regional scale and managed by institutional players, making available on a regular basis updated maps of the most significant agronomic indices with a resolution of 10 x 10 m, and to connect it with the IRRINET system;
- to develop components and interfaces to manage the flow of information from the creation of vegetation indices maps (including those generated by proximity or in vivo sensors) to irrigation advisory systems and eventually to precision irrigation systems;
- to implement a demonstration system for the management of precision irrigation with a high degree of automation that relies on these services and on protocols agreed upon with irrigation machine manufacturers;
- to improve the functionality of FERTIRRINET, part of the IRRINET service: ◦ in terms of quality of the irrigation advice, thanks to a systematic integration of satellite data and, where available, ground sensors; ◦ setting up variable rate irrigation plans for soils and crops where appropriate.
The standards and protocols developed during project POSITIVE will be available and fully documented to be freely usable by all companies (both farms and equipment providers) interested in precision irrigation and fertigation
Soipomi 🍅
The SOIPOMI project aims to make more and more central the role of the O.I. of processing tomatoes in the process that generates information to support the supply chain, so as to be able to manage them and play a leading role of hinge between the agricultural and industrial world for a greater appreciation of the tomato on the markets. Through the development of a system of crop classification and production forecasting starting from Sentinel 2 ESA satellite images to derive technical information that can be used to better plan the various interventions both by the farm and the processing industry. Another objective is to have real-time data during the campaign to know the quantities delivered to industries and their quality levels, so as to better manage the planning of harvesting and processing.
For further information click here
Agro.Big.Data.Science 🥬🍐 🥝
The agro.big.data.science project intends to apply the data driven logic to 3 production chains (kiwi, pear and spinach), complete with the necessary sensors for real-time data collection. Agro.Big.Data.Science, the result of the project, will be the landing point for the development of specialized solutions for the agri-food domain and has the following objectives:
- The solution of specific problems of the three supply chains considered;
- The validation of the data driven methodology on the agro-food supply chains;
- The verification of the maturity and improvements of IoT systems already available to the supply chains;
- The engineering of a Big Data platform specific for the agri-food sector, flexible and usable also by supply chains different from those considered in the project.
GRACE BBI 🌾🌾
The Bioeconomy project GRACE is made up of a unique consortium of 22 partners from both academia and industry and also includes SME’s, farmers and an industrial cluster. These are joining forces to demonstrate three goals:
- the upscaling of miscanthus crop production
- the production of both miscanthus and hemp on lands of low productivity, abandoned land or land with contaminated soil
- the establishment of 10 biobased value chains at a scale of relevance to industry.
In this project, I assisted my colleague Giorgio Impollonia (the one and only) in the development of an algorithm for the estimation of Miscanthus moisture and an algorithm for the estimation of biophysical parameters using UAV multispectral images 🚁 .
ClieNFarms 🌍🐮🍅🚜
ClieNFarms is an Innovation Action project funded by the European Commission to support the European Green Deal. It aims to co-develop and scale up systemic, locally relevant solutions to foster climate-neutral and climate-resilient farms across Europe.
Supporting the Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy, contributing to the achievement of its objectives, the ClieNFarms project aims to demonstrate, evaluate and improve technical, organisational and financial solutions at the farm level that will contribute to achieving climate-neutrality of European agriculture by 2050. This will be done by a multi-actor approach, interactively integrating and improving existing solutions to achieve economically viable business models in farming systems by involving farmers, extension services, agri-food business, policymakers, finance and citizens. These solutions will be disseminated, and young farmers will be targeted through capacity building.
FARMS4CLIMATE 🌍🐮🚜
Farms4Climate is a PRIMA funded project (EU’s Horizon 2020 programme) that seeks to unlock opportunities linked to carbon farming for Mediterranean smallholders. The Farms4Climate project is coordinated by AIR Institute (Valladolid, Spain), started on April the 1st 2022, and will last for 36 months. It is based on the creation of 6 living labs that will promote the diffusion of 6 regenerative agricultural practices relevant to the 6 selected territories (southern Spain, southern Italy, northern Italy, coastal Tunisia, coastal Egypt, desert Egypt).