Scaling up the use of Nutrient Management Tools towards the Farm to Fork Strategy governance through an on-farm experimentation scheme - FERTI WISE -
Fertilisation is a crucial practice within agricultural activity, consisting of restoring to the soil those nutrients that are progressively depleted during the plant development process, and it plays a key role in food production. However, when excessively or inaccurately applied, nutrient losses can become a major source of water, soil, and air pollution. The EU is actively addressing this issue, setting the goal of effectively reducing nutrient losses by 50%, while preserving soil fertility, which should lead to a 20% reduction in fertiliser consumption by 2030.
Farm Sustainability Toolsfor Nutrients provide farmers with fertiliser proposals adjusted to plot needs, minimising losses and reducing environmental impacts. Some of them apply Variable Rate Nutrient Application (VRNA) technology, which reduces fertiliser dosing by following a precision fertilisation approach that considers variability between plots and even within the same plot. This is a step forward compared to current practices based on a uniform dose of fertiliser for all plots.
The SATIVUM platform, created by ITACyL and supported by the Spanish Ministry for Agriculture, integrates the above-mentioned technology into a free-access decision support tool aimed at widespread use among various agricultural industry stakeholders. Although an increasing number of farmers are equipped with precision machinery and digital tools have advanced considerably, these practices are still not sufficiently widespread among farmers.
LIFE FERTI-WISE will address this gap by developing a set of demonstrative trials on farmers' plots (On Farm Experimentation), acting as a powerful awareness-raising strategy for the mainstreaming of precision fertilisation practices based on VRNA and the SATIVUM platform. This will help limit the negative impacts on water, soil, and air quality, paving the way for achieving the goals set in the EU Green Deal and improving decisionmaking efficiency in environmental conservation.
Personal de apoyo: Braulio Estévez Rodríguez