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Ac: Monitoring of Agricultural Crop Diseases and Pest Risks

 

Responsible:  Acro

Assistance: Info , PRO, HeuR , TGS,  all partners

 

Agricultural crops are an important and vital aspect of all European economies not only because they are one of the major sources of food, but because they contribute to the trading capacity of many regions, particularly rural locations, through exports.  Crop plants are highly susceptible to attack by both pests and disease and this has been exacerbated by changes in climate patterns through global warming as well as an increase in pesticide resistance and intensive production resulting in mono cropping.

 According to figures for the first quarter of 2002 as published by Eurostat, the real price index for crop products as a whole rose by 11.0%, and within this category there  were real price rises for all product groups except wine, which fell by 3.1%.  Large rises were also seen for fresh vegetables (+37.0%),  root crops (+13.9%) and fruit (+10.7%). Smaller rises  were also observed for olives and olive oil (+6.7%). Changes in the price index for crop products in EU-15 countries ranged from -11.5%  in  Portugal to +22.1% in Greece.

 This JPA aims to pilot an early warning system advising farmers of impending risks thanks to nano-robots and micro sensors both in the air and in soils. Apart from this an electronic information service will be used as a single one-stop portal as a solution to this problem, especially for small regional areas of the European Union and candidate countries where information distribution is difficult. The digital content to be placed online will in fact allow not only the public service institutions to submit information but also the end users – the farmers themselves, will be able to issue warnings to other farmers in their region and nationally advising of outbreaks and their potential spread. Background information from agricultural departments, research organizations and universities will also add to the valuable electronic content to be placed online. 

 The viability of such a solution will be explored in the duration of this initial definition phase, together with the development of options for commercialisation of such data in order to ensure that this system will continue to be utilised after the life of this project.

 

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