Digital Farming в Україні | Agrilab
Digital Farming in Ukraine

How do you envision the farming of the future? Robots, drones, sensors? Agronomists with tablets in their hands? Satellite technology? Big Data? For some companies, this is not the future, but nowadays, the everyday life of their business life. On August 29, they shared their experience of combining digital and farming with an agribusiness conference Digital Agribusiness / Precision Farming organized by AgriLab.

KERNEL: open agribusiness

Yevgeny Sapizhenko, Head of KERNEL Modeling and Monitoring Service, started the conference. He spoke about the use of software and analytical systems to make management decisions. In particular, he said that KERNEL is using its own unique algorithm for predicting yield based on the analysis of satellite monitoring results. This provides not only a high degree of confidence in forecasting yields, but also allows you to build efficient logistics. Today, the country’s largest agro-holding company is openly sharing its experience in implementing digital technologies with farms, creating an Open Agribusiness IT platform for them to learn about the production results of other project participants online and implement best practices on their farms.

Soil management to increase profits

Yaroslav Boyko, CEO of AgriLab, spoke about a sensible approach to the use of resources. In particular, the example of practical case studies of farms in different regions of the country, he told how you can increase profitability through judicious management of soils.

You need to remember that 60% of your crop depends on the level of soil fertility. In the USA today, 80% of farmers use GPS-based analysis of soil sampling. Americans do not understand how to start using resources without seeing the map of the field. Cheap land lease leads to a lighthearted attitude of Ukrainian farmers towards soil resources. But we know perfectly well that it always will not be. Soil analysis and balancing of the power supply are required. Not only for classic NPK, but also to consider macro, micro, mesoelements”.

It is important for farmers to see the practical side of the results obtained, the real numbers from farms that are already making more profits today.

“Integrated agrodiagnostics is the basic product from which you need to start working in agribusiness. I choose the best solutions and technologies that are the most advanced in the world. In 2000, I had a phone with a large antenna, and in 1995 I used a regular landline phone. So, the methodology that has remained in the domestic laboratories is a phone that we have left in the past and have favored modern and high-quality models. The analysis we are conducting together with the Ward Institute envisages the improvement and use of up-to-date methodologies for different types of soil in different regions. These results are a starting point for further work as they are used to developing fertilizer system recommendations”.

In a specific example, Yaroslav Boyko showed how the use of agrodiagnostics algorithm can significantly increase profitability, saving resources in fields with low potential and increasing yields in fields with high potential.

“It is planned to receive 9 t / ha of corn for the farm, but when we conducted comprehensive agrodiagnostics and determined the effective yield, we got 7 t / ha on one field, -8.8 t / ha on the second, and a potential crop on the third. is -10.5 t / ha. What’s going on here? Each field is special, and accordingly needs an individual approach, it is necessary to move away from the system of fertilizers for culture, and to consider each field as a separate unit with its potential and needs. Sometimes you just need to balance the fertilizer, somewhere to add a micronutrient and spend only $ 14 / ha to get a yield of 10.5 t / ha per specific field”.

So to get more profit, you need to know the natural potential of the field and the data of the soil analysis. This information will greatly optimize the use of resources.

“Precision ” technologies: experience

Andrey Lukyanenko, Chief Operating Officer of the Grain Alliance, shared his interesting experience in the application of precision farming technologies in the field of spring field work:

In precision farming, we take the first steps because we want higher yields. Of course, we pay attention to improving labor productivity, try to be less dependent on the human factor and in the future we will save resources, since precision farming is not cheap.

For best results, we have done some work by investing in the purchase of new equipment and have already achieved some results. The most effective tool is the autopilot, as it turned out, in terms of its accuracy, they bring good effect.

The speaker also spoke about the experience of using technology of data exchange between technology, accumulation and analysis of data received during the season, the use of weather stations and UAVs.

The conference was lively and dynamic. The speakers openly shared their real practical successful and even unsuccessful experience in digital technology and precision farming. And the audience, which is more than 100 farmers from different regions of the country, actively “stormed” the speakers with questions. The digital age of agribusiness is already approaching.

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