Technology enters horticulture at Expo Agritech 2024

The event, which will bring together more than 8,000 professionals from the world of the field in Malaga, Spain, from 26 to 28 November, will host the Agritech 4.0 Congress, the largest forum for innovation in the agricultural industry, which will give real answers to the challenges of horticulture, with the exhibition of technological initiatives that are evolving the market. Specifically, the congress will feature the Horticulture Forum, an exclusive space dedicated to the entire value chain of this segment that will present, from the hand of leading experts, how cutting-edge tools are boosting the competitiveness of plantations and crops.

Robotisation and automation applied to the greenhouse will be the protagonists of this meeting with the pioneering experience of Hamza Qadoumi, recognised as one of the most prestigious entrepreneurs close to 30 years old for his social impact projects, according to the Forbes List. Qadoumi is the founder of Ecobloom, a Swedish company specialising in intelligent crop monitoring systems for indoor farms. The solution monitors and controls the production process of each feed from seed to harvest without the need for manual intervention, allowing farmers to manage their farm at the touch of a button, from anywhere in the world.

In addition to the entrepreneur, the meeting will include Víctor Cantón, CEO and co-founder of the technology company Enkitek, and Alba Pérez, Head of the Industrial Development area of the Tecnova Technology Center, who will analyse the integration of robotisation in horticultural crops to increase efficiency and reduce production costs. An example of this, which will be seen at Expo Agritech 2024, is the strawberry picking robot, which has been developed by Enkitek and Eurecat.

The forum will also address one of the most innovative trends for greenhouse cultivation: the use of LED lighting technology to improve plant growth, a strategy that has been successfully implemented in territories such as the Netherlands, with the Food Valley project. This proposal has managed to boost agri-food production, among others, with the use of this type of light that has made their crops work 24 hours a day. Precisely, Araceli Barceló, Coordinating Researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, Fisheries, Food and Agricultural Production of Malaga, will detail at the congress the use of LED lighting technology for indoor cultivation, and will review the progress and trends in genetic improvement of horticultural plants to increase their productivity and resistance.

Likewise, energy, which has become a crucial element for greenhouse agriculture to always maintain the right temperature, will have a prominent role in the summit. In this context, Ana Belén Fandos, Senior Business Development Manager at Repsol, and Armando Florencia, head of Repsol Horeca Sustainable Community, will bring to the table the innovations that are being implemented in clean energy in closed environments, such as liquefied gas, biofuels or agrovoltaic technology, which are allowing to improve the efficiency and profitability of the facilities for each farm.

Irrigation systems for sustainability

Given the limited and scarce commodity that is water, one of the areas where more agricultural companies have invested in digitisation is in irrigation, in order to move towards a more responsible and optimised water supply. Thus, Expo Agritech 2024 will showcase the best automation tools in water distribution and fertigation in fruit crops, highlighting their benefits in consumption, as well as their impact on productivity.

In this line, experts such as Jaume Casadesús, Head of the Efficient Use of Water Program at the Institute for Agri-Food Research and Technology of the Generalitat of Catalonia, will discuss what is the best system according to the needs of each production, from the use of moisture sensors to calculate the water required by the crop, to more sophisticated tools such as digital twins. For his part, Joaquín Sánchez, manager of the firm specialising in engineering, Wats, and Daniel Quesada, general director of Agricultural Production and Livestock of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development of the Junta of Andalucía, which offers its strategic support to the event, will share how public aid is enabling irrigation farms to be more sustainable energetically.

All this will be complemented by live technology demonstrations such as the one by Inder Kumar, a researcher in digital business innovation at Wageningen University. Kumar will delve into the Digital Agri Hub, an initiative that tracks the evolution of the digital agriculture ecosystem in low- and middle-income countries.