Yesterday, representatives of the largest agricultural enterprises gathered at a business breakfast in Kiev at the invitation of the AgriLab and the Landlord magazine. The aim of the morning meeting was to introduce modern technologies for the agriculture efficiency increasing.

Iaroslav Boiko, co-founder and CEO of AgriLab, briefed the participants how to increase profitability and to optimize production. He presented the main products of the company and successful examples of its implementation.

“The AgriLab’s team brings together experts from Ukraine, Europe, USA and Canada. We work with leading laboratories and research centers, such as the International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA), Iowa Soybean Association (USA), University McGill (Canada), University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Laboratory WARD etc. Summarizing the best world experience, we have developed effective integrated solutions allowing exploit the potential of the field, reduce production costs and, eventually, to get more profit per hectare, “- said Iaroslav Boiko.

One of the major products of AgriLab – the field expertise. The audience find out about it from agronomist-analyst Eugene Predchenko.

“The field expertise passes in several stages. The first is automated soil sampling with GPS, then – an analysis in the American Laboratory Ward, agrochemical maps developing, climatic and weather conditions expertise, the definition of critical factors and potential field. As a result – the client receives individual recommendations for optimizing cultivation technology with optimum size of norms and doses of fertilizer, and the ratio between the nutrients for each crop in a particular field. The field expertise can increase efficiency by 20-30%,”– said Eugene Predchenko.

For today, the company AgriLab conducted an analysis and mapping more than 6,000 fields or 400 000 ha. Examples of comprehensive field expertise efficiency gave Iaroslav Boiko.

He described the experience of the company “Agrocultura Mostyska”, which for several years unsuccessfully tried to grow soybeans in the fields of Lviv region. For one step to opt out of this culture, the company appealed to AgriLab for comprehensive field expertise.

It found the causes of low yields and developed an algorithm of action to remedy the situation. Following the AgriLabs recommendations, the manufacturer has not only got a crop, that has pleasantly surprised everyone, but also optimized the system of fertilizer and Є 14 and  increased profitability. The other company – “AgroGeneration Ukraine” – held the comprehensive field expertise on 70,000 ha, which allow to optimize the cost of fertilizer by 10-15%. According to Iaroslav Boiko, there are many such examples like that, because today 144 companies are among the customers of AgriLab.

Despite the morning time of the event, the audience in the hall was very active. Were a lot of questions to the speakers and the meeting was aboil with controversy.

What is the effectiveness of precision agriculture technology? How much should you invest to get the desired result? Is precision agriculture available to small farmers or only large agricultural holdings are able to swing it?  How to establish an effective system of quality monitoring and resource management? What kind of data system will really work and not only accumulate archive? Responses of AgriLab were based on the actual numbers and own experience.

“The investment in precision agriculture usually payback in the first marketing year – said Iaroslav Boiko. Thus, for example, the local fertilization save 20-50% of fertilizers and increase the yield by 3-20%. By implementing variable seed rate, companies can save 3-8% or $ 4,5-12 seeds / ha. The efficiency of automatic landing autopilot subsystem – 6.12%. Introducing innovation, keep in mind that each following technology reinforce each other.”     

Business meeting of AgriLab with agricultural companies, organized by the Landlord magazine, once again proved, that Ukrainian manufacturers in generally aware of the innovation necessity, but they elaborate each change. This is not surprising, because is always fearful to do the first step. So, standing on the path of innovation, is better to have that guide, who has repeatedly passed this way.