Technological Offer

Eofarming Earth Observation Map for Farmer

EOFARMING main objective is to launch in the market an innovative PF service which targets small farms (average size between 5-30ha), addressing a clear user need, and to enter in the emerging market of commercial applications of EO downstream services in agriculture, estimated to be worth approximately € 43 million in 20151.
EOFARMING will be a unique Precision Farming service that can represent a disruptive innovation in the usage of space technologies in the agriculture industry, by targeting small farms (80% of the European UAA) with an affordable and easy-to-use solution. By opening up PF to small farmers, EOFARMING has the potential to become a game-changer in an agriculture sector which is still characterized by the lack of use of new space and IT technologies. The EOFARMING solution will be based on:
§ The combined usage of GIS and remote sensing, for the development of a Webgis platform related to a geographic database. The webgis interface will make use of an open Source technology (Open Geo suite) in line with the European standard INSPIRE;
§ the use of an innovative algorithm derived from the 3 indexes NDVI(Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), LAI (LEAF AREA INDEX) and OSAVI (Optimized Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index) (developed by IPTAST in collaboration with CRA, Centro Ricerca Agricoltura) for the production of 3 kind of maps simultaneously i.e. crop vigor maps, vegetation status maps, green leaf maps. This maps will be used by crop physiologists, agronomist, farmer and modelers for estimating foliage cover, as well as forecasting crop and yield growth , chlorophyll value .
§ A system for indexing and search of historical data, also based on Open Source technology;
§ A database with thematic maps (. crop vigor maps, vegetation status maps, Green leaf maps )and satellite data (Sentinel 2 and Landsat 8).
§ The use of free data from Sentinel 2 and Landsat 8 as basic information in the realization of thematic maps, thus valorizing EU efforts in provision of open access data from satellites;
§ A Web and a Mobile app to allow direct access to the EOFARM services by workers when operating in the field;