The Future is Now
Last week I was in Venlo, The Netherlands, participating in the event ‘The Future is Now’, organised by Innoveins and Bluehub, with whom Proaxxes is creating links in AgriFood Tech. During the event in the inspiring building of Brightlands Campus Greenport, the former Expo Floriade of Venlo, the buzz word was Future Farming!
We listened to five pitches of innovative start-ups in the field of sensoring, data and sustainability. After that, we were transported to the future by two presentations of the leading Dutch companies, Signify on the use of LED lighting in agriculture, and KPN on the ten technology trends they are working on. The well-organised event concluded with a very interactive panel discussion. Personally, I was inspired by the technology proposals of the five start-ups because of their usefulness and apparently direct applicability. Let me give you a quick glance:
AIGRO is developing a Robotized Weed Control system where a robot (AGV) drives through the cultivated area, mowing the lawn while selectively detecting and destroying the weed with electricity.
JOIN DATA is active in the dairy and agriculture industries. Through secure and transparent data distribution they provide farmers with the ability to see all the data collected and decide with whom to share it with.
GLITCH develops a system for the greenhouse cultivation of strawberries, in multiple layers. Over a height of 8 meters, strawberries are grown in 4 layers with the potential of calculating energy saving, light use, quality of the fruit, when to harvest and how to dehumidify.
GENZAI is automating the measurement of stem thickness of trees through Artificial Intelligence in order to allow growers to follow the growth speed of their trees by the millimeter. This is linked to a GPS for stem recognition so growers can understand the dimension of their stock.
And finally, BOTANY developed a system to measure the effectiveness of organic pesticides. Through Digital Image Detection, Botany can count the different stages of the whitefly on six crops. This includes roses, chrysanthemum, gerbera, cucumber, tomato and paprika.
We were then taken into the future by Signify LED lighting and KPN, the national telecommunication company. Signify is supporting growers to improve quality, increase yield and save water using dynamic controlled LED lighting. While KPN is supporting the greenhouse horticulture sector with technological innovation and facilitation. KPN sees the following 10 future trends as an unavoidable solution to keep up with the growth of the world population. These trends will provide healthy and safe food to nine billion people by 2050: 5G networks, Open API’s, Internet of Things, MultiAccess Egde Computing, Distributed Ledger, Data Driven Society, Human AI Interaction, Autonomous Systems, Extended Reality and Security.
The afternoon ended with a networking drink with lots of food for thought!
Proaxxes is connecting Dutch and Italian technology for AgriFood and is always interested in discovering innovative solutions to match.
Feel free to contact us!
