Pilot Ukraine

In 2021 we are organizing a pilot for the Ukrainian agriculture and Open Horticulture sector to test our soil moisture management technology for a group of 10 farmers.

We will be running a pilot in March 2021 for farmers in the Netherlands, but we have decided to expand the scope to Ukraine. Goal of the pilot is to introduce and familiarize Ukrainian farmers with our solution and to customize our technology to local circumstances.

Subscribe for our PilotAlso check out our pilot in Holland

Background

The majority (more than 95%) of farmers in Europe irrigate crops through a non-data driven matter. This leads to unnecessary under- and over-irrigation, which results in loss of productivity and water consumption that is unnecessarily high. To counter this successfully, an approach is needed that combines the use of technology (soil moisture sensors) and the latest crop and soil models.
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Current sensors (technology) offered in the market often only indicate a measurement value that represents soil moisture. The measured value has a different meaning for, for example, a clay soil than for a sandy soil. In addition, a moisture value has different implications for different types of crops and their respective growth phase. Current solutions leave it up to farmers to translate this measurement value into an irrigation decision. Farmers often do not have enough knowledge to make this translation successfully. This lack of knowledge means that current technological solutions in the market cannot be successfully deployed and their adoption remains low.
In collaboration with Wageningen University & Research, a leading Dutch agricultural academic institute, we have developed state of the art technology with the most advanced crop and soil models to provide farmers worldwide with irrigation advice that actually enables farmers to increase productivity and to realize significant water savings. This solution will be tested on a large scale during a pilot with Dutch farmers in 2021 and a second pilot is being prepared for Ukraine.

Focus Target Group

Our focus in Ukraine is on farmers with high yielding crops who are used to irrigating their fields, either with irrigation systems or manually. High yielding crops can include potatoes, onions and sugar beets. As our technology is based on IoT technology connectivity is an important requirement for applying of our technology. However, we can look to establish local connectivity solutions. As Ukraine is a much larger country than the Netherlands we will be centering our pilot around Kiev.