As reported in the report recently issued by the United Nations (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change –
IPCC Report 2021), the benefits that technology provides to a green and sustainable economy are highly
appreciated and under intense research and development globally. Circuits and Systems (CAS), which are the base
for any system, can bring the needed functionalities and performances for reaching eco-friendly, circular and
practical solutions.
The IoT active connection in agriculture (as an example in Europe) are exponentially increasing, proving that
Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA or Precision/Smart Agriculture) is a very fast-growing research field, where more
controlled quality production, water use optimisation, and a lower spreading of pesticides and fertilisers are some
key issues, serving the improvement of food quality, but also helping the respect of agriculture for the
environment.
For reaching these targets, electronics are the perfect tool for interfacing the data sources, extracting the data
and processing them, and obtaining the needed information along the whole food chain: from the farmer, and the
professional stakeholders to the consumers.
In the Distinguished Lecture, an overview of electronics for CSA will be presented, analysing the possible solutions
that can bring important innovations, advancing the actual strategies based on remote or indirect measurements,
by instead in-place measuring the plant and soil parameters (a.k.a. Let the Plants do The Talking), associated with
more standard information derived from environmental conditions. This new and disruptive technology, related
to Wearable Sensors for Plants, the World Economic Forum has recently identified it as one of the “Top five
technologies about to change the world”, indicating it as one of the key solutions to increase food production by
70% by 2050 to be able to feed the world population.
Application scenarios for crop monitoring, water control, information communication and decision support will be
presented. In particular, will be analysed technologies for reaching the needed levels of low power and low cost,
and the efficient ones to be applied to AgriFood at the global scale, supporting also food security and
sustainability.
Speaker(s): Danilo Marchi
Bldg: Institute of Microelectronics of Seville (IMSE-CNM), Cl Américo Vespucio, 28. , Parque Científico y Tecnológico Cartuja, , Sevilla, Andalucia, Spain, 41092, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/424031