Pr. Kamal Aberkani, FP Nador, Mohamed First University, Oujda, Morocco
Title: Digital Agriculture Technologies for Irrigation: Field Research and Applications.
ABERKANI Kamal
Research Team on Applied Biology and Biotechnology, Laboratory of Bioresources, Biotechnologies, Ethnopharmacology and Health, Multidisciplinary Faculty of Nador, University Mohammed First Selouane, Maroc
Corresponding author: k.aberkani@ump.ac.ma
Abstract:
Agriculture is one of the main sectors of the Mediterranean area economy. Climate change has reduced annual rainfall and increased desertification. Currently, one of the main concerns for the grower is water management and crops irrigation. Many technologies and methods of irrigation have been developed to improve water use and production. Moreover, digital agriculture was developed recently, which has resulted in achieving production efficiency. This work present the Euro-Mediterranean project entitled DATI or “Digital Agriculture Technologies for Irrigation”, selected by Prima in 2021. Partners from different research centers and universities and are from five Mediterranean countries (Italy, Spain, Morocco, Portugal, and France) are involved. The project aimed to design and develop new Digital Agriculture (DA) Technological Solutions (TS) and procedures for crop and soil monitoring to optimize irrigation management by improving farm-scale irrigation equipment and scheduling water release according to crop needs. Low-cost, affordable, flexible, and adaptable, the TSs have been implemented in different conditions and for different crops. Each TS has been developed as a lean package to improve water use efficiency of small-scale farmers in Mediterranean environment to increase irrigation profitability ensuring crop yield and quality.
Keywords: Apps, drought, digital, satellite, sensors, technologies solutions, yield.
