Magyar fejlesztés a precíziós gazdálkodás fejlődéséért

2015 February 11.

The precision farming is spreading worldwide, but at a relatively slow pace. The protection of environment, the quality manufacture of products, the protection of our soils and last but not least the reduction of costs and the improvement of economic efficiency; all these factors provide a stimulus for its worldwide spreading. The slow pace of its spreading is in particular due to the considerable costs of its technical implementation; however, a new Hungarian development offers now a more cost-effective solution as compared with the current situation.

The land parcel is the smallest unit in the traditional crop farming. The spread of satellite-based positioning allowed us to be able to continuously locate the position of an agricultural device on a given acreage at any time; it has enabled the interventions in the plant cultivation also in the units smaller than a land parcel. In this way the different physical and chemical soil conditions of a given acreage can be taken into consideration as well as the propagation of weeds, pests and pathogenic germs within a plot can be monitored. The use of the precision technology enables the farmers to send the optimal or almost the optimal amount of input materials (seed, fertiliser, plant protection products) to all parts of the given area respectively the agricultural entrepreneurs can carry out adaptive soil cultivation while taking into consideration the physical and chemical characteristics of the soil in the respective area land.On the one hand, it generates significant cost savings and,on the other hand,  it prevents the undue environmental impact of the territory. The use of precision technology improves the intensity of production and at the same time it results in a lower impact on the environment as well as it contributes to improving the quality and to reducing the costs; it is therefore clear that the precision farming has become nowadays an essential instrument for the sustainable development of agriculture.

The combination of the traditional growing techniques and processes with GPS-based measurement methods is not a recent innovation in the domestic agricultural sector. These solutions „see” the movement of the agricultural machine integrated in the system generally with an accuracy of 1-2 meters, but an accuracy of 1-2 meters is needed in the precision farming. The technologies installed in the machines that are equipped with automatic guided vehicle system work with great accuracy, however, they require significant investment. As a result of a Hungarian development, the everyday savings associated with the high-tech tecnologie will be available from now on also for agricultural enterprises with a smaller budget.

The company i-Cell, engaged in fleet tracking, developed its brand-new solution based on demands of farmers. The system, which was developed expressly for the agricultural sector, is able to coordinate the farmers’ fleets with an accuracy of 1 meter ( compared to the prior  3-5 meters’ accuracy ); in this way the system already meets the requirements of precision farming and at the same time, it also places the services of the traditional fleet tracking system at the disposal of the farmers.

„The system considerably reduces the overlappings during the cultivation of land parcels, no matter what work phase is being done; it leads partly to significant cost reductions and savings in labour, and , on the other hand, the system gives priority to the aspects of nature conservation, since,for instance,  the harmful effects of toxicity during fertilization or spraying are  also reduced. Every agricultural entrepreneur can take well-founded and personalised economic decisions by processing of data collected by the device ” said Károly Farkas, Chief Operating Officer of i-Cell.