PHOTO: XAG


PHOTO: MARK PASVEER


PHOTO: JOHN DEERE PHOTO: ANP


EDITOR’S PICKS ▶▶▶


XAG and Bayer show drone spraying in China


ASIA


XAG showcased its Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) fruit tree solution based on Artificial In- telligence (AI) and 3D flight mode. The device sprayed a typical citrus orchard in Hangzhou’s Jiande Town. The 1.5 hectares orchard is lo- cated in rugged hills, where the mandarin trees are planted in uneven density and have grown to different heights. It used to take three workers three days to manually spray the entire orchard. The field experiment showed that one XAG P Series Plant Protection UAS could effectively spray half of the orchard area in only 10 minutes. While Bayer’s experts had provided plant disease diagnosis and prescrip- tion, XAG utilised its newly released 3D flight modes – band, hover and spiral – to conduct precision spraying operation on different types of terrains. Prior to the spraying operation, a UAS can au- tonomously fly over the orchards for centime- tre-level mapping and 3D terrain modelling. This is then followed by cloud computing and AI analysis. According to XAG, nearly seven hectares of fruit trees can be accurately identi- fied within one second, with recall ratio and precision ratio reaching as high as 98.60% and 98.04% respectively.


Technology to enhance


Australian agriculture AUSTRALIA


A 3-year project aimed at unearthing new ways to move Australian agriculture forward


8


has wrapped up with a list of 39 emerging technologies and 24 new industries. The 6 part series of ‘Horizon Scans’ highlights futur- istic technologies, trends, innovations and new industry opportunities, all with strong potential to expand and grow Australian agriculture. The watchlist of 24 potentials in- clude medicinal marijuana, hemp milk, and hydroponic berries, Asian vegetables, hydro- ponic hops, Australian edible natives, insect farming, wild camel and goat harvesting. Emerging technologies were identified in ro- botics and artificial intelligence, data, biotech- nology, genomics, business models, renewa- ble energy, and advanced materials. Other transformational technologies identified through the scans are driving smarter and more reliable energy infrastructure. The in- creasing availability of low cost and efficient electricity generation and storage technolo- gies will facilitate entirely new models of energy consumption.


are gaining importance here. But this also raises questions: Are there suitable interfaces to merge different digital data? Who protects data sovereignty and farmers’ independence? Who collects and uses data and ensures data security? Who owns collected data? It is im- portant to clarify that appropriate data plat- forms require political monitoring and protec- tion. Klöckner: “The feasibility study that I commissioned makes a contribution to this.”


AI key to Africa’s future food security


AFRICA Germany: € 60 million


for digital agriculture EUROPE


The German federal minister Julia Klöckner has commissioned a feasibility study on data platforms in agriculture for € 428,000. Results will be available in autumn 2020. Morever, € 60 million has been earmarked for digitali- sation in agriculture by 2022. A significant part of this is being used to establish digital test and experimentation fields, in order to find out in practice how digitisation on the ground can function. According to Klöckner, farmers expect that a smooth exchange of agricultural data between the products of different equipment manufacturers is guaran- teed without any loss of time. Data platforms


▶ FUTURE FARMING | 1 november 2019


According to John Deere, the ability of agricul- tural equipment to think, predict and even advise farmers presents Africa with an oppor- tunity to meet the continent’s own food re- quirements. GeoFarm South Africa states that farms in the US are 27% more productive than comparable South African farms. While, super- ficially, this is because US farms are more mechanised, John Deere thinks a closer exam- ination of what these agricultural machines are doing, shows just how fundamentally AI has changed the way humans farm and how dramatically these changes have increased agricultural yields. If Africa is to meet its own food consumption needs, and also produce sufficient excess to participate in global agricultural value chains, “We need to understand and harness the ben- efits of AI in agriculture in Africa too,” says Wayne Spaumer, product specialist for Preci- sion Agriculture, Sub-Sahara Africa at John Deere. If the introduction of basic mechanisa- tion had such a huge impact on yields histori- cally in the developed world, the impact of in- telligent machines connected to third-party data bases in the cloud is truly revolutionary for Africa.


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