🎬 Multilingual subtitles
✍️ By: Team BC1.NL
In the Dutch province of North Holland, the Digital Farming NHN project is exploring how digital technology can contribute to more sustainable agriculture. The initiative brings together a wide range of partners with the shared goal of developing a practical, future-oriented system that helps farmers work more efficiently and in an environmentally friendly way.
The concept is simple, by using data and technology smartly, farmers can make better decisions and improve the sustainability of their operations. However, implementing this in practice is far more complex.
Digital farming, fewer inputs, more insight
A key pillar of Digital Farming NHN is the use of precision technology. By understanding exactly what a plant or a specific piece of land needs, the use of crop protection products and fertilizers can be significantly reduced. This not only saves costs but also benefits the environment and supports biodiversity.
That said, it’s not without its challenges. In practice, collecting up-to-date and reliable data on soil conditions, crops, and potential diseases proves to be quite demanding. It requires specialized sensors, drones, software, and most importantly, the right expertise.
Multidisciplinary collaboration for success
To bring together all the necessary knowledge and technologies, a wide variety of parties collaborate within the project. Led by Greenport NHN and LTO Noord, agricultural companies, a university of applied sciences, a research center, tech suppliers, and software developers are conducting joint research. This multidisciplinary cooperation is essential to make digital farming practices practically applicable.
Where does the project run into trouble?
Practice is more stubborn than the idea. Taking photographs from a moving machine is difficult, because driving speed, vibration, the position of the camera and the light all work against you, while sharp images are exactly what you need in order to recognise diseases and pests. The biggest challenge, though, is not collecting data but making it useful. Readings from a weather station, from the soil and from the cameras have to communicate quickly and intelligently before anyone can act on them. A researcher puts it bluntly in the film: we are collecting a great deal of data and we do not yet know exactly what we can do with it, I hope we will in five years. But we need that data now in order to get there.
Why linking data is the magic formula
There is one more obstacle, and it is not a technical one. Manufacturers and producers fence off their data to protect their intellectual property. As a result systems do not talk to each other and the synergy fails to appear, while that very connection is what makes the difference. In the film, linking data is called the magic formula for new, more sustainable and more efficient ways of working.
A series of real-world stories and field experiences
To show how the project is unfolding in real-world settings, a series of interviews has been launched. In the first installment, flower bulb grower Stef Ruiter (J.C.J. Ruiter Wever, Andijk), Sander Dekker (Agrotheek), and Pieter Vlaar (Vertify) share their experiences. They all agree: digital tools and precision agriculture are vital components of future-proof farming.
More information about sustainability in agriculture
In the report The future of bulb growing, sustainable and innovative participants of Fieldlab Bol explain how they are working on sustainable cultivation methods within this project.
Also interesting:
Digital Farming – part 2 data processing
Digital Farming – part 3 applying site-specific techniques
Digital Farming – part 4 achievements and future prospects
Natural farming helps biodiversity
