The European GNSS Agency (GSA) is set to announce the winners of the 2016 Farming by Satellite Prize on 23 January 2017 during the International Green Week exhibition in Berlin.

The GSA will announce the winners of its 2016 Farming by Satellite Prize In making their decision, the judges looked for relevance, feasibility, innovation and potential marketability.on 23 January 2017 during the International Green Week exhibition being held at Messe Berlin. The prize awards students and young farmers submitting the most innovative ideas for using satellite technology to improve agricultural production, efficiency and profit. Entrants compete for a share of a EUR 13 000 cash prize, sponsored by key agriculture stakeholders, Claas and Bayer CropScience.

Over 85 individuals and teams registered for the contest, ultimately leading to 45 eligible submissions coming from 13 European and eight African countries (a separate, special prize is awarded to projects submitted by students and young farmers from Africa). From these submissions, an independent judging panel selected the following projects to make the final round:

  • Cleverlrrig (Portugal): software development to support agricultural water management using remote sensing data.
  • Eyecrop (Portugal): scanning pivots with multiple features, including irrigation decision support, plague and disease detection, weather monitoring and crop measurement.
  • Glorify (Italy): a new forecasting system, tested in Italy, combining Earth observation and crop modelling to provide both quantitative and qualitative estimates for rice production.
  • ISA Lille (France): connected cover crop, a technological application related to the optimisation of cover plants.
  • Logic Farm (Belgium): a wide-ranging project using satellite data to address municipal green spaces and the loss of carbon and organic matter in agricultural soils.
  • Niessen (Germany): add-on for implements enabling autonomous driving and optimal working depths.
  • TTT Solutions (Czech Republic): web-based service providing temporal analysis, spectral indices, crop behaviour, and control and support for the payment of subsidies.

For the special Africa prize:

  • Digifarm (Kenya): digital farm information access system that leverages mobile technology to provide farmers with real-time information on rainfall, wind patterns, plant health and the best crops to plant and market.
  • Munzansel (Morocco): geological mapping and soil characterisation in identifying agricultural related hazards using freely-available Copernicus and Sentinel data, leading to best-practices for sustainable agriculture.
  • 7 Saros (Kenya): using satellite technologies to optimise irrigation and fertiliser application. Project will support decisions on when to irrigate, which areas of a field to irrigate and whether or not conditions are optimal for applying fertiliser.

An expanding focus

The focus of many of this year’s entries was on the use of satellite information, remote sensing and GNSS for mapping in conjunction with geological, soil and vegetation data. “Entrants showed a good understanding of the potential for using the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) as a simple graphical indicator to analyse remote sensing measurements and to show the health and productivity of crops and other biomass,” says Judging Panel Chair Dr Andrew Speedy.

The judges also noted their pleasure in seeing some projects address novel crops, including rice in Europe and cocoa beans in Africa. The projects also covered a wide use of satellite information. “Projects covered irrigation requirements, insecticide use and soil organic matter remediation,” says GSA Market Development Officer and fellow judge Reinhard Blasi. “There were also several entries related to fisheries and aquaculture, all of which demonstrates another fertile field for the application of satellite systems, particularly remote sensing and resource mapping.”

In making their decision, the judges looked for relevance, feasibility, innovation and potential marketability. And although there can be only one winner, the entire judging panel agrees that all of the finalist projects clearly demonstrate the enormous potential that applying GNSS and Earth observation to agriculture can bring. “All of these excellent finalists make it clear that satellite information systems are being included in many university and college curricula throughout Europe,” says Dr Speedy. “The potential for engineering applications needs further encouragement and can only be achieved through the public-private collaboration seen in this prize.”

About the prize

The prize, an initiative of the GSA and the European Environment Agency, is open to students and young farmers across Europe and Africa with innovative ideas for using satellite technology to improve agricultural production, efficiency and profit, or to reduce the sector’s environmental impact.

Launched in 2012, the Farming by Satellite Prize, is held every two years.

The award ceremony is scheduled for 14:00 on Monday, 23 January 2017 at the European Commission’s Stand (number 3.2) in Messe Berlin. The announcement is being held as part of the GSA’s participation in International Green Week, a global tradeshow for the food, agriculture and gardening industries. Feel free to join the competitors.

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