In the ‘Agropole Innovates’ project, four German-Dutch teams are developing solutions to current challenges:

1. Evaluation of organic compounds from insect production as potential fertilisers and soil improvers.
2. Reduced use of plant protection products through early detection of diseases and pests in tree nurseries.
3. Development of learning algorithms and use of AI to respond earlier to pests and diseases.
4. Increasing animal welfare, resource efficiency and food safety for greater transparency in pig farming.

The innovation platform is the connecting element between these projects.

The project will gain new knowledge and further develop technologies for saving water, energy, pesticides and other resources. This not only protects the environment and climate, but it also helps companies prepare for the future. Moreover, new business and revenue models may emerge. An important aspect is also the digitisation and automation of processes, simplifying operational procedures, reducing workloads and increasing the attractiveness of agribusiness. At the same time, this offers opportunities to increase the transparency of product characteristics and production processes for consumers.

The Agropole Innovates project is implemented under the Interreg VI programme Deutschland-Nederland and co-funded with €2.025m by the European Union, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (EZK), MKWIKE NRW and MB Niedersachsen, as well as the province of Limburg.

Collaborating on disease prediction

In this project, Yookr is collaborating with Compass Agro, ISIS IC and Baume & Bonheur on prediction models and software and visualisation and weather data links for growing fruit trees. For this, we select sensor technology and build prognosis models that can teach us something about disease pressure and moisture deficit.

“Existing models for predicting plant diseases are usually based on multiple temperature and humidity data from the soil, air or leaf surface. This data is recorded via sensors and transmitted via radio technology to a software programme,” said John van Helden, owner of Yookr. “What is new in this project is that for the first time, we will create self-learning algorithms to correlate historical data as well as active live data and predictive values from different sensor types. This will make it possible to get predictions of diseases.”

Thanks to these developments, stock stocks in nurseries can become healthier and stronger, and trees and shrubs can make a greater contribution to CO₂ storage in the climate transition. “For nurseries, we should be able to realise savings in terms of watering, plant strength, use of nutritional supplements and pesticides. And for humans, animals and nature, higher CO₂ storage is what we are betting on.”

The Agropole Innovates project started on 1 September 2022 and ends on 31 August 2026. It is implemented as part of the Interreg VI Germany-Netherlands programme and is co-financed with EUR 2.025 million by the European Union, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (EZK), the MWIKE NRW and the MB Niedersachsen and the Province of Limburg. The project has a total budget of about €3.7 million. About 1.7 million of this will be funded by the 10 project partners themselves.

More information can be found at: https://deutschland-nederland.eu/ and at https://www.agrobusiness-niederrhein.de/projekte/agropole-innovates.

Agropole Innovates’ enthusiastic team: