Today, during the final day of Macfrut 2024, the event was successfully held “Ortofrutta Connect”, jointly organised by JOINFRUIT e RURALL – Rural & Urban Digital Hub to offer a valuable opportunity to reflect on the New frontiers of digital innovation in the fruit and vegetable sector.
The event provided an opportunity to open a specialised dialogue on the potential of technology for improve productivity, sustainability and profitability in agriculture.
Joinfruit has undertaken the digitisation of agronomic management with Diagram Group, while with Rurall and Oròbix he has started the experimentation of Solutions for quality control of agricultural products in the field AI-based on some apple orchards, realising the project “Ortofrutta Connect: Artificial Intelligence and image collection and management to help farms”within the framework of the Operational Programme 2024-2026.
“We chose this project – he recounted the Joinfruit Director Bruno Sacchi – to add value to our produce through digital traceability, to improve the planning of field interventions as well as planning during delivery, and to pursue environmental sustainability that goes hand in hand with economic sustainability: for us, investing in digital technologies primarily means aiming to bring greater income to our producers, through simple systems that are not too invasive to their farms” daily agronomic practices and that generate cost savings.”
The solution offered by Rurall is simple and meets these needs: through cameras positioned on tractors working daily in the fields, it has been possible collecting images providing farmers the information they need to anticipate agronomic choices, including growth and number of fruits, degree of ripeness and colouration, product quality, leaf yellowing, pathogens or insect appearance. A tool that therefore allows us to anticipate possible scenarios in the field, consequently reducing treatment costs and environmental impact, and at the same time improving programming being conferred: “a correct estimation of production – Sacchi continues – This leads us to better cell planning, while the transfer of product quality allows for better post-harvest storage management.”
A project, therefore, that allowed an important valorisation of the data collected in the field, fundamental to talking about product traceability and quality.
“The agri-food sector – underlines Alessandra Bonetti, General Manager of Rurall - faces challenges that are answered in digital innovation and technology, which represent the path to follow to obtain healthy, authentic and sustainable products. We are therefore no longer talking about yield for its own sake, but rather about accessible and quality productions thanks to the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices, which involve digitalisation and data acquisition, i.e. knowledge. And precisely on the topic of data and knowledge – adds Bonetti – Rurall, through the Infragri project, is committed to supporting the agricultural sector in collecting data to implement sustainable practices. Joinfruit – concludes the General Manager of Rurall has understood the potential of a systemic and integrated approach and has applied it to enhance production and guarantee product traceability and supply chain transparency”.
Stefano Farisè, Head of AI Manufacturing Division, Oròbix, provided an interesting overview of precision fruit-growing, explaining the potential of AI and machine learning in optimising apple collection and delivery processes, while Gianluca Ferrari, co-founder of Hypermeteo, explored the relationship between climate change and digital technologies, explaining how the digital revolution can be a glue between different sectors by collecting data that can interact with each other.
Finally, Aurora Cavallo, Director Condifesa Cuneo, he stressed how innovation is a lever to focus on in order to adapt the agricultural risk management system to current changes in the climate scenario, while Serena Selvetti, Head of Agriculture 4.0, Consorzi Agrari d’Italia, illustrated the possibilities of participating in the Call M2C1 I2.3, “Innovation and mechanisation in the agri-food sector”, which foresees incentives (from 65% to 80%) on investments to improve the agricultural machinery fleet and to the introduction of precision farming systems for innovation and the efficiency of agricultural production.
“Ortofrutta Connect”is currently being trialled on three different farms within the Joinfruit group, and the objective for the coming years is“broaden the range of producers - concludes Sacks - to further improve image results. Furthermore, we want to train and inform the widest possible number of member companies on the project's evolution..”
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