Press release: SUCCESS OF IDEEO PROJECT WORKSHOP IN MATERA

Submitted by Natassa Antoniou on 02 May 2018

SUCCESS OF IDEEO PROJECT WORKSHOP IN MATERA

Matera 27 April 2018. The IDEEO Workshop “Smart is the New Green -– Digital Technologies for a Profitable & Sustainable Agriculture” was held, in the beautiful location of Masseria  Fortificata S. Francesco, a fortified farm from 1600. The event, organised by Cluster Lucano di Bioeconomia (CLB) in the context of IDEEO Project, focused on the potential of earth observation technologies applied in agriculture for precision management. The workshop gathered all the relevant stakeholders involved in Precision Agriculture development, namely, ICT experts, ICT SMEs, Research institutions, and most importantly farmers. Eighty persons attended to the event, actively interacting with the panel of experts and farmers, to discuss priorities and innovation demand from the agriculture sector.

In this context, the IDEEO project aimed at bringing together the earth observation industry and the agriculture sector.

Giuseppe Masturzo, President of CLB, welcomed participants and after Christopher Oligschlaeger from the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC), presented the benefits of Earth Observation for agriculture while Philippe Monbet from Pole Mer Bretagne Atlantique Cluster, presented the benefits for the maritime sector. Both also introduced the objectives and the main activities of IDEEO. Ilaria d’Auria, from NEREUS network, the cluster of European regions particularly active in earth observation, highlighted the relevance of EO for the territorial development and citizen benefits.

A roundtable with farmers and farmers’ organization, namely Primosole, Assofruit ed Azienda Lillo, stimulated a discussion on challenges to be faced and priorities based on real demand from the productive world. Ensuring both environmental sustainability of the production systems and the quality of products, were among the very first priorities identified by the farmers.

Five best practices, responding to the farmers’ needs, were then illustrated by five companies, e-GEOS, Planetek Italia, TIM, Geospazio Italia, Digimat, covering technology and services from satellite data use, IoT and several crops from cereals, to horticulture, fruits and vineyards.

Luca Braia, Councelor of Agriculture of Basilicata Region confirmed the importance of precision agriculture technologies to boost and support the agro food value chains of Basilicata, closed the workshop.

Mr. Braia informed participants that the region was already investing on this sector, especially on R&D, and more is expected to happen in the private sector in terms of investments in the new call of EAFRD 2014-2020 for value chains development.

Three measures of EAFRD, European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development, with a total financial capacity of 100 M Euros) are currently open for project aimed at the development of agro food chains (http://europa.basilicata.it/feasr/category/bandi/bandi-in-corso/).

In the afternoon sixteen B2B meeting were organized to help stakeholders in developing relationships and new business opportunities.

About IDEEO:

IDEEO is a project co-funded by COSME Programme of the European Union. It has the objective of creating a new European partnership, which will promote internationally the use of European Earth Observation capability in different sectors such as, maritime and agriculture. Tthe consortium partners are:

  • European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (ERASC), in Belgium that coordinates the project;
  • Pole Mer Bretagne Atlantique from France;
  • Cluster Lucano di Bioeconomia.
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