Almería SmartAgriHub
Digital innovation hub (DIH) focused on Mediterranean fruit and vegetable production
Description
Almería, a village in Andalusia, Spain, has organized its farmers around a cooperative system in support of market access, collaboration and knowledge sharing. The SmartAgriHub was established to boost the competitiveness of the farming community by accelerating digital innovations, and offers such services as research, collaborative development, testing, validation and technical support. The hub supports the maintenance of a connected ecosystem in which the stakeholders collaborate from research to on-farm application.
Technology
The Almeria SmartAgriHub – part of the Horizon 2020 IoF2020 project – makes use of Internet of things (IoT)-based systems to optimize water, fertilizer and energy use in tomato greenhouses through the iVeg app. This app draws from heterogeneous data sources addressing different time scales, such as climate control sensors, weather forecasts, grower decisions, as well as agricultural and environmental public authorities, supporting enhanced decision-making and transparency across the supply chain and contributing to the standardization and interoperability of information. Additional interventions include INV-DSS, an irrigation/fertigation management tool for use in Mediterranean greenhouses, and AGRODATA 4 PREDICTION, which allows the standardization and integration of data from the Agri sector in Almeria and governmental sources and the analysis of big data using artificial intelligence to support the development of predictive decision-making models.
Target
The main targets of the project are family farmers with small- to medium-sized greenhouses, producer organizations such as cooperatives and farm advisors, as well as competence centres offering digital and technological infrastructures and advanced expertise. The SmartAgriHub is accessed by some 10 000 family farmers who operate an average of 2 hectares of mid-tech greenhouses, as well as around 100 producer organizations (mostly cooperatives) and 1700 farm advisors
Impact
The SmartAgriHub aims to integrate local, European and global knowledge into agricultural digital innovation, and thus to strategically reorient and improve the Mediterranean intensive fruit and vegetable sector, leading to increased competitiveness and sustainability.
Partners
Foundation Cajamar; Association of Organisation and producers of Fruits and Vegetables of Almeria (COEXPHAL); Hispatec; European Union
Four Betters
Better production
Better environment
Better life
