A Cyber Physical Resource Management System for Crop Irrigation and Fertilization

Project Overview

With recent studies forecasting that the global population will reach 9.5 billion people by 2050 it is apparent that the demand for food will increase accordingly on a global scale. In this timeframe it is estimated that the global food production will grow by 60%, based on world production data from 2005 to 2007. The impact of climate change in farming makes matters worse with rising temperatures, rainfall regimes, and variations in frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events.

In order to prepare for these adverse predictions, farmers will need to adapt to climate change by developing advanced farming systems and adopting efficient, sustainable practices. This set of solutions go beyond the traditional techniques like conservation tillage, cover crops and crop rotation and employ innovative technological solutions based on advanced sensing and monitoring systems and data analysis.

CyCROP’s goal is to provide a precision agriculture system based on the concept of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) which, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “aims to tackle three main objectives:

• sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes;
• adapting and building resilience to climate change; and
• reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas emissions, where possible”.

Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes,

Adapting and building resilience to climate change and

Reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas emissions, where possible”.

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