One of the most promising and challenging areas for agriculture in terms of scope and potential applications, precision and digital agriculture was the theme of a virtual workshop held on November 13th with experts from Embrapa and Agriculture and Agri -Food Canada (AAFC).
The objective of the meeting, articulated by Alexandre Varella, coordinator of Labex USA, was to identify priorities of common interest that will guide cooperation projects between the two countries starting next year. The official presentation of the results to the boards of the respective institutions is confirmed for November 30th. The memorandum of understanding for cooperation was signed in July.
This was the second cooperation workshop between Embrapa and AAFC, under the organization of Labex USA. The previous one took place on October 28th and 29th, on agricultural biotechnology, focusing on gene editing of plants and microorganisms. “Our role was to mediate contact between the research groups and contribute to the organization of the event, creating an opportunity to get closer to the AAFC, motivating innovative collaboration proposals”, says Varella.
According to the secretary of the Management Committee of the Automation, Precision Agriculture and Digital Portfolio, researcher at Embrapa Informática Agropecuária Maria Angélica Leite, the cooperation coincides with the moment of greatest evidence of digital agriculture. “The boom in this area, without a doubt, is the integration of data that can be obtained by different sensors and, consequently, in different formats, through images from satellites and drones with attached cameras, which will support monitoring and generate important information that will be able to contribute to solving problems in the field”, he explains.
For her, the challenges are related to acquisition, storage, cataloguing, availability and access to data, so that they are understandable and available for consultation and reuse. “This is one of the biggest problems in digital agriculture, which involves not only Brazil and Canada, but other countries that also need organization and access to this level of information. Therefore, effective actions in data governance become essential when we talk about collaborative work with data, especially in the field, in digital agriculture”, she comments.
Another fundamental point in the partnership with the AAFC will be the analysis of the data obtained. “Different algorithms can be used, but we will focus on machine learning and deep learning, prioritizing artificial intelligence. Governance and integration of data and analysis processes will be our two pillars for articulating projects within the scope of this partnership”, highlights Maria Angélica.
Both institutions use satellite images to map agricultural areas. With cooperation, it is planned to share methodologies for improving processing techniques. “Images with greater spatial detail, such as those from the Sentinel-2 satellite, can be used in conjunction with advanced machine learning techniques to detect the types of crops grown in the main agricultural centers in Brazil”, explains the researcher.
Ricardo Inamasu, researcher at Embrapa Instrumentação and president of the Management Committee of the Automation, Precision Agriculture and Digital Portfolio, explains that the definition of themes for cooperation was based on the projects being executed. “We map ongoing projects, with the aim of enhancing, in addition to optimizing, the financial and human resources already involved,” he says.
“This is an important opportunity, which is part of the agreements articulated by Labex and which has the advantage of strengthening portfolios, contributing to a more integrated performance of the Units”, he highlights. “In previous articulations, strategic UDs or a researcher were traditionally sought. This time, through the portfolio, we sought a greater breadth of action on topics grouped into units that have projects in the area”. According to Inamasu, the transversal capillarity of this type of theme configuration adds potential and institutionally strengthens the initiative.
Among the areas with the greatest potential for collaboration between Embrapa and AAFC are the identification of disease risks in the context of global food security; satellite image processing; biosurveillance; crop experiment planning; computer vision for detecting objects in images, such as diseases in plants, and robotics.
Two joint publications are also planned: one on “Measuring vegetation indices for environmental monitoring based on UAV”, in remote sensing, and another on plant pathology. Next year, a virtual workshop on artificial intelligence and image processing should take place.
“It is a vast field that will guide transformations in agriculture, being an area of great interest, with many challenges for the research and development of new technologies”, assesses Maria Angélica. She highlights the launch of the book "Digital Agriculture: research, development and innovation in production chains", which brings together the main initiatives developed by Embrapa Informática Agropecuária, in partnership with other UDs and public and private institutions.
Regarding the prospects of working with the AAFC, the scientist expects positive results. “For cooperation to be fruitful, we guide our researchers to be focused and specific in the challenges they are facing in their projects and in which they would like to have the collaboration of AAFC researchers”, she comments. “On the Canadian side, the expectation is the same for there to be a balanced exchange.”
In addition to the coordinator of Labex USA, representatives from the international office and scientists from AAFC, the workshop was attended by researchers from Embrapa Informática Agropecuária Carla Macário, Julio Esquerdo, Jayme Barbedo and Thiago Santos and analyst Eduardo Speranza, and researcher Lúcio Jorge, from Embrapa Instrumentação.
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