Green Network: Solutions for Supply Chain Traceability and Monitoring of Environmental Parameters to Support Agriculture and to Improve Product Quality

Overview

The term Smart Agriculture defines the sphere of solutions aimed at monitoring, managing and optimizing processes related to agriculture: being able to monitor environmental parameters related to agriculture reduce the use of resources and environmental impact. In this project, a forecasting model to predict the health state of tobacco plants was developed, along with two different types of sensor to measure soil and air parameters, such as electro-conductivity (soil), temperature and humidity (both air and soil) and leaf wetness. Measuring these parameters has a two-fold purpose: to set up a control and warning system for the activation of prevention and correction activities, and to give the possibility to the operator who requests monitoring, to build a useful database to elaborate analysis and forecasting strategies. The device is built so that it can be placed in open fields and it can transmit data to a control unit that acts as a hub for all the sensors displaced in the area. The collected data are then processed by a software and elaborated into different graphs, which can be monitored by two different users, farmers and agronomists, depending on which kind of information they want to investigate. A spore-detection module will be installed to prevent plant infections caused by pathogens. From the collected data it has been shown that this project would have a positive impact on agriculture, making it more controlled, smart and efficient, thus improving reducing its environmental impact and the quality of the products obtained.