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Thursday / November 21. 2024

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HomePosts Tagged "Netafim"
Agribusiness, Agrotech, Digital Technologies, Middle East countries, Water

GrowSphere™ is the first digital farming solution on the market that integrates hydraulic, operational and agronomic capabilities into one intuitive operating system.

Israel based Orbia Advance Corporation’s Precision Agriculture business group Netafim announced GrowSphere, a unique operating system automating precision irrigation and fertigation. GrowSphere has delivered significant benefits to thousands of farmers across diverse topographies and climates. The system has proven to boost value per hectare by improving operational efficiency and providing reliable implementation for growers at all stages of their irrigation and fertigation automation journey.

Farmers today face a variety of environmental pressures, from climate change to soil erosion and biodiversity loss. To meet these challenges, farmers are investing in new technologies, like GrowSphere, to increase productivity and drive efficiency across their agricultural practices.

GrowSphere was designed by precision irrigation pioneer Orbia Netafim, in collaboration with industry-leading PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) providers and cloud platform providers. It has been validated by top universities and irrigation institutes. The operating system combines over 50 years of agronomic expertise and crop data with cutting-edge digital farming technologies including IoT, cloud computing and data analytics. GrowSphere is the only solution on the market that effortlessly integrates three crucial capabilities – hydraulic, operational and agronomic – into one operating system, significantly reducing the need for manual in-field operations.

“As they face an increasingly unpredictable environment, growers seek greater control and stability over their crop production. GrowSphere’s intuitive operating system further positions Orbia Netafim as the ideal partner for farmer success with our unrivaled agronomic insight on crop cultivation,” said Gaby Miodownik, Executive Vice President, and President of Orbia’s Precision Agriculture business (Netafim). “With GrowSphere, Netafim enables farmers to ‘close the loop’ on their operations. We firmly believe this system will be adopted by many more growers and ultimately lead to greater profitability for their businesses.”

GrowSphere maximizes crop yields and minimizes water and fertilizer usage, while allowing farmers to stay on top of what is happening in their fields. Willian Ferreira, Manager of Santa Maria and Jatobá farms in Pedregulho, Brazil, comments, “I’ve been really impressed with GrowSphere’s ease of use, reliability and cost optimization, and I’ve encountered notable savings in fertilizer, water and energy usage, and most importantly, in time. This solution provides farmers with the confidence to grow more with less, with precision, from wherever they are.”

Key features of GrowSphere’s Operating System:

Monitors soil, weather, crop, and irrigation status with real-time updates from fields.

Controls irrigation and fertigation systems from anywhere via cloud-based access.

Provides timely alerts about irrigation or system maintenance issues.

Generates reports to support traceability and track crop performance from season to season.

GrowSphere™ Crop Advisor leverages a powerful algorithm to enhance irrigation plans with recommendations tailored to specific stages in a crop’s lifecycle.

Orbia Netafim is developing partnerships for GrowSphere to broaden the company’s range of solutions and further enhance its capabilities.

GrowSphere™ is the first digital farming solution

Agribusiness, Agrotech, Company News, Middle East countries, R&D, Water

Life cycle analysis by precision irrigation pioneer proves the environmental benefit of methods for potato growing in the face of climate change with over 50 per cent reduction GWP.

Israel based Netafim, an Orbia business and a global leader in precision agriculture solutions, announced today the findings of a comprehensive Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) that demonstrates the significant environmental benefits of using drip irrigation for potato cultivation, particularly in reducing Global Warming Potential (GWP) and water consumption. Adopted by the IPCC for assessing the science of climate change, GWP is a measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas traps in the atmosphere over a specific time period, relative to carbon dioxide.

Demand for potato products is at an all-time high while growers are increasingly motivated to improve water efficiency and reduce the environmental cost of production.  The LCA study focused on the environmental impacts of drip versus rain gun irrigation systems for both fresh and processed potatoes. 

Conducted in partnership with Potato Solutions and Drip UK, the trial took place in Norfolk, East Anglia, from March to October 2022. The key findings below underscore the efficiency and sustainability of drip irrigation over irrigation by rain gun for potato production. 

Potatoes grown with drip irrigation exhibit a 54% reduction in GWP for fresh potatoes to those irrigated with rain guns.

Drip irrigation for processing potatoes requires 40% less water per ton of potato than rain gun systems, highlighting the technology’s ability to conserve one of our most precious resources.

“In the fight against climate change, drip irrigation technology emerges as a powerful ally, paving the way for a more sustainable agricultural landscape.” Said Max Moldavsky, Director of Innovation and Climate Solutions at Orbia Netafim. He added, “Amidst mounting environmental pressures, farmers and companies are confronted with urgent calls to mitigate their impact, sustainable growing is not just a choice but a necessity to meet these demands and safeguard our planet’s future.”

Tim Kitson, of Potato Solutions, highlighted the adaptability and efficiency of drip irrigation, especially in regions facing water scarcity, “Even under ever-changing conditions and the looming threat of water scarcity, drip irrigation has shown remarkable reliability and resilience, ensuring water preservation and effective energy management.”

This study not only reaffirms Orbia Netafim’s commitment to sustainable agriculture but also highlights the importance of innovative irrigation solutions in addressing global challenges such as climate change and water scarcity. By leveraging precision irrigation technologies, Orbia Netafim continues to drive forward its mission of growing more with less, benefiting farmers, the environment, and communities worldwide.

Life cycle analysis by precision irrigation pioneer

Agrotech, Company News, Horticulture, India, Inputs, Vegetables, Water

Drip irrigation system by the company helped farmers gain 40 per cent more yield and higher profit.

Netafim, an Orbia business and a global leader in precision agriculture solutions, under Better Life Farming, helping Shivpuri farmers grow more tomatoes with less spending on Agri inputs. Under the initiative, farmers are encouraged to adopt drip irrigation technology. The drip irrigation systems are provided through four Better Life Farming (BLF) Centres present in Khajuri, Kolaras, and Pohari region of Shivpuri district. Netafim has implemented drip irrigation system to cover 1,600 hectares of land in Shivpuri District. The farmers across Shivpuri district have witnessed higher crop yield and higher total income. The drip irrigation technology has helped farmers grow ~30 tonnes tomatoes in one acre and get a total income between INR 1.5 lac to 2.5 Lac compared to the previous 20 tonnes and income of 1 Lakh to 1.2 Lakh, in one acre.

Shivpuri District boasts a net cultivable area of 4 lacs hectares out of the total available land of 10 lacs hectares. It is one of the leading tomato crop producers in Madhya Pradesh. Traditionally, the district farmers produce 2.5 lacs metric tons of tomatoes in a total area of 8,145 hectares. Despite being famous for tomatoes, small farmers in Shivpuri often face challenges to cultivate and harvest tomato crops when the prices are optimum. One of the biggest reasons behind this is flood irrigation in tomato farming. This practice leads to an increase in Agri-input consumption, fertilizer wastage, getting a tomato harvest of uniform size, and the growth of weeds. Tomatoes require a high-water supply, especially in the phase immediately after transplant, to reach their full potential in the production process. It is precisely where irrigation technology comes into play, and Netafim, a global BLF Alliance partner, has taken on this task.

To create a conducive farming environment and replicating the successful model of drip irrigation technology for tomato farm fields across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat, Netafim is constantly endeavouring to implement drip irrigation systems across the district. The company offers FlexNet Portable Drip Kit in the Shivpuri district for farmers to benefit from the flexibility and customization for their convenience. The community of farmers is benefiting from cutting-edge micro-irrigation solutions tailored to their farmland. The advanced technology offered by Netafim India has enabled farmers to optimize their farming practices, improve productivity and profitability. Drip Irrigation provides measured doses of water and nutrients at the right time directly to the root level, eventually reducing the input cost by 25 per cent and increasing profitability for farmers.

Speaking about the success, Amit Maheshwari, Head of Business Development, Netafim said, “Access to high-quality Agri inputs, financial and technical assistance are accelerated to tomato growers in Shivpuri through Better Life Farming centres. However, district farmers must focus on the optimum use of Agri inputs and time their tomato harvest. We believe sustainable technologies like adoption of drip irrigation technology will augment tomato farming and make it a lucrative crop. In the coming time, Better Life Farming Centres in conjunction with the expertise of Netafim will serve as catalysts for change in the agricultural landscape and foster a sustainable as well as prosperous farming ecosystem in the district”.

Drip irrigation system by the company helped

Interaction, Opinions

Despite the success in terms of production that has ensured food security in the country, food inflation and volatility in prices continue to remain high causing inconvenience to consumers and uneven income for farmers

Agriculture continues to be a dominating employment generating sector and contributes a significant proportion to the country’s GDP. Even in the unfortunate pandemic, the sector climbed new heights with record production of various food grains, exhibiting resilience and ensuring food security. Despite the success in terms of production that has ensured food security in the country, food inflation and volatility in prices continue to remain high causing inconvenience to consumers and uneven income for farmers. Besides pandemic wrecking substantial physical, social, economic and emotional havoc on all the stakeholders of the Indian agricultural system, locust infestation from East Africa to India, Natural calamities, and depleting natural resources only added to the sector’s woes. 

Even though the policymakers accelerated a raft of measures and announced reforms to give thrust to the sector, it has reached an inflection point that needs immediate attention. Thus, the forthcoming budget offers an opportunity to fix an array of ancillary problems and fast run the wheels of reforms to accelerate the growth engine of the Indian agriculture sector.

Alignment of Micro-irrigation coverage with ambitious Vision India@2047

While the government is working on the blueprint for India@2047 to be ‘future ready’, it is important to accelerate India’s growth and adoption towards new-age agriculture practices with optimum utilisation of resources. The average penetration of micro-irrigation in the irrigated area (drip and sprinkler) is estimated at 17 per cent which is much lesser compared to countries like Israel (90 per cent), Russia (78 per cent), Spain (75 per cent), the US (55 per cent) and Brazil (52 per cent). We need to have an ambitious target and align the execution process to take micro-irrigation coverage to 60-70 per cent in the next 25 years. 

Identifying areas and crops to integrate the benefit of micro-irrigation with structured governance and execution strategy will help the country climb a newer height of fiscal growth. To do so, the government may create five years bucket of appropriate execution and monitoring roadmap for the next 25 years backed by adequate budgetary support consistently.

Process streamlining measures in irrigation subsidy 

While the micro-irrigation coverage has benefitted millions of farmers, the scheme implementation leaves a lot to desire at the execution level. The delays in the disbursal of micro-irrigation subsidies under the PMKSY program are hampering its progress. Online portal for an end-to-end process execution and visibility, transparency in the process for fund disbursement, ensuring checkpoints at various stages and adherence to timelines would bring the efficiency in subsidy disbursal and support farmers to be debt-free much conveniently.

Providing infrastructure status to the micro-irrigation industry

Infrastructure status would help the micro-irrigation manufacturer (95 per cent of which comes under MSME) in reduced operating costs, thereby accelerating the industry growth as well as bringing the equipment cost down for the farmer community.

Aligning different schemes together for exponential benefit – Solar and Micro-irrigation, Agriculture alongside Solar installations, and others

Focus on renewable energy like solar would ensure energy security in the agriculture sector as well as in the rural landscape and address environmental concerns. Making farmers energy-sufficient would also reduce the burden on government energy subsidy bills. Solar installation-friendly agriculture would help farmers with reduced operational costs, boost land utilization and improve overall income.

Diversification programs to increase crop productivity 

12 per cent of the cropped area under fruits and vegetables (F&V) leads to 24 per cent in value terms, in contrast to 13 per cent area under oilseeds which gives only 6 per cent in value terms because of lack of scalability. Policymakers may consider promoting domestic oilseeds and oil palm cultivation with higher productivity measures to address the demand cycle. Similarly, disrupting rice cultivation that covers more area and water utilization through drip technology would improve yield, save water and reduce carbon emissions. Drip irrigation adoption also has the potential to facilitate crop diversification thus, making a direct impact on farmer incomes.

Policy & budget outlay for integrated climate smart agriculture practices

Climate change has led to reduced crop yields and farm productivity. Besides, the increased occurrence of invasive pests, weather variability, poor agriculture practices has also added to the deteriorating situation of climate change. The agriculture sector is one of the main contributors to the climate problem. It currently generates 19–29 per cent of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A shift towards climate-smart agriculture practices through proper policy and financial outlay can go a long way in achieving sustainable growth.

Focus on creating infrastructures to support innovation and digitalisation in Agriculture

Special focus and fund allocation in the upcoming budget for infrastructure in rural areas would support the digitalisation of agriculture and put the sector on the fast track. Currently, India is spending less than 1 per cent of Agri GDP in R&D. An Agri innovation fund, which supports ag-tech solutions, start-ups, and digitalisation at different levels of the Agri value chain can transform agriculture economy in the future.

Interest subsidy on agriculture for long term loans

Access to credit remains one of the critical elements in a sustainable and more importantly a growing ecosystem. Interest subsidy on agriculture for long-term loans to help farmers with continual investment in farm mechanisation and building state-of-the-art infrastructure would go a long way to develop a sustainable model in agriculture. Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for adopting micro-irrigation similar to CGTMSE for MSMEs will be helpful where initial support can be provided by the government.

Special budgetary assistance for micro-irrigation to state government to overcome covid impact

The financial strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has left many states across the country to slash the budget for micro-irrigation. The policymakers should consider supporting the states through an additional corpus of funds either by direct special assistance programme or increasing the existing Micro Irrigation Fund (MIF) set up under NABARD to facilitate the states in mobilising resources for expanding coverage of micro-irrigation.

Despite the success in terms of production