Presenting modern technologies and systems in the monitoring and protection of agricultural crops, lecturers from the Faculty of Agriculture and Food of the University of Sarajevo held a series of panels at the 50th anniversary international fair of agriculture and food industry, Plum Fair.
It was pointed out that there is an evident shortage of labor in agriculture, which can be alleviated by the use of new technologies, which will be aimed at facilitating and helping farmers in their work.
Docent dr. Arnela Okić believes that it is worth doing agriculture because agriculture can also be very modern, especially when digital technology, modern software solutions, the use of drones and agrometeorological stations are included.
In order to encourage farmers to switch to a “smart” way of farming, diVision Agro from Sarajevo presented “AgroMonitor”, which offers various software tools necessary for analyzing climate, soil, spatial, organizational and sociological data, as well as tools for self-collection, storage, presenting them through interactive maps, tables and graphs that are easy to interpret and further analyze.
As pointed out, “AgroMonitor” offers agricultural producers quick and easy access to information about specific agro-ecological and production conditions.
Through a device connected to a smart phone, it is possible to monitor when and to what extent to irrigate agricultural crops, have information about weather conditions, monitor the occurrence of diseases, when to apply insecticides, and there is also a fertilization program for more than 1,000 different agricultural crops.
This type of application of new technologies was supported by manufacturers and exhibitors at the Gradačac fair.
“A good thing is the introduction of precision agriculture, which achieves a significant reduction in the consumption of pesticides. It is significant from a financial and ecological point of view. But as a person who works in the field, I know that there will be problems with implementation, because our people have not yet sufficiently mastered those forms of communication. However, young people want to introduce everything that is new. And younger fruit growers, who are few, I believe will use these technologies,” said Danko Combo, an agronomist from Gradiska, as reported by the information service of “Plum Fair”.
