Smart agriculture for innovative vegetable crop protection
SmartProtect is a thematic network funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme (GA 862563). The project focuses on sharing knowledge about SMART IPM solutions with farmers and advisors involved in the production of vegetables in greenhouses and outdoors. The aim is to stimulate knowledge flow and linkages within the regional Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKISs) across the EU, focused on the innovative potential of advanced methodologies for Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in vegetable production, integrating precision farming technologies and data analytics.
IPM takes a holistic approach to plant health management, based on prevention, monitoring and control. IPM means careful consideration of all available plant protection methods. It is important for the EU’s Farm to Fork strategy, which targets reducing pesticide use and impact. To ensure a greater uptake of non-chemical plant protection methods, IPM must become the normal approach for farmers across the EU
Find more information on smart IPM techniques on our SmartProtect website
To facilitate the uptake of IPM across the EU, SmartProtect provides a range of information for you.
Surveys through questionnaires that were completed by experts and stakeholders around EU, demonstrated that the need for information on smart IPM tools is huge, although the current level of knowledge is rather low. Interested in the results? You find more info here.
Read more about our benchmarking of the different technologies and how we scored all the technologies within several different categories.
Learn about the results of our case studies on vegetable cultivation outdoors and in greenhouses and about the technologies tested in the field by our partners in different countries.
Check our freely accessible SmartProtect platform which presents a range of smart IPM techniques that are available for commercial vegetable production. Around 200 smart IPM techniques are listed, including application techniques, decision support systems, diagnostic and detection techniques, and monitoring techniques. We continue to update the platform with new technologies. Click Here to visit the Platform and explore its content in 12 different languages.
SmartProtect has become an established international network. Explore the SmartProtect’s clustering links with EU projects, including H2020 multi-actor approaches and Thematic Networks across the EU, and with other initiatives. These links stimulate and increase the flow of practical information from the SmartProtect project amongst all interested stakeholders and end-users, with the aim of achieving greater user acceptance of the IPM solutions identified.
Finally, a considerable amount of practical information on IPM and Smart IPM techniques is summarized in more than 100 Practice Abstracts. Find out more about them here.
