In the medium term, the European Earth observation program Copernicus will promote the development of technological companies providing services to agriculture, and will help boost the growth of the applications sector, according to the technician of "Space and Technological Returns" of the CDTI, Mónica López.
Copernicus is a group of satellites. It consists of six families known as "Sentinel", each one formed by one or several satellites, and those in the "Sentinel-2" family "offer very useful information to the agricultural sector, especially in the field of precision agriculture," says López.
The spokesperson of the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI) stresses that the "free access" to all data collected by Copernicus is helping create "new business opportunities and opening the door to a whole field of applications for the agricultural sector."
The program also provides a series of ground measurement infrastructures (sensors), which provide data to "calibrate, verify and complement" the satellite information. They also help in the subsequent processing of the data, so that an expert user can work based on them.
"Technology companies can provide added value and create specific products" for agriculture. Both "Sentinel-2" satellites (A and B) are optical and able to supply high-resolution images, which can be used to "define agricultural uses and monitor crops."
With the programming of algorithms and the appropriate processing of these data, specific applications can be developed for specific uses, because "the producer, in many cases, does not want to receive an image, but a product that helps them optimise their work and make decisions."
Companies that develop these types of products "have great potential in the use of Copernicus images," he says.
López, also an agronomist, with a master's degree in remote sensing and geographic information systems, said that "although the use of optical images (through high-resolution multispectral cameras) is more widespread in agricultural applications, radar images from the "Sentinel-1" are also used in this field.
Images on cloudy days or at night
He explains that these have an added value compared to optical ones, since they can take images of the surface of the Earth even on cloudy days and at night. Consequently, "they are a good complement to the first ones," since with the combination of "Sentinel-1" and "Sentinel-2", they offer a frequency of terrestrial observation of between 2 and 3 days.
López highlights that the images and data provided make it possible, for example, to determine the fertilization, phytosanitary or irrigation needs and help organise every task, from sowing to harvesting.
With this information, "the producer can optimise the use of the resources available during the crop's growth, detect diseases at early stages, predict the crop's yield and be able to make the best decisions, with the consequent cutting of costs."
Source: Efeagro