Innovative technologies to optimize the application of agricultural products

Background: Currently more than 90% of applied conventional crop protection products are either lost in the environment or unable to reach the target. Therefore, more treatment cycles are used and result in detrimental effects on soil, air, waterbodies, and can affect beneficial insects such as bees and ladybugs and enter the food chain, damaging wildlife (i.e., birds, hedgehogs, wood-mice, beetles, butterflies, and amphibians). On the other hand, current product application strategies imply direct manipulation of the compounds by operators making it a manual and time-consuming process with the risks associated with operators’ exposure. Thus, current practices contribute to soil, water, and air pollution, increase biodiversity loss and soil degradation, reduce crop resilience to extreme climate, and represent a risk for human health due to product exposure. Furthermore, several of the newly developed biocontrol strategies required of a direct application into the plant (i.e. endotherapy) making it a highly manual and demanding process that needs to be improved with innovative technologies to increase its efficiency. Therefore, current plant protection strategies need to be revised and enhanced to attain the sustainability objectives that EU Commission has established for 2030.

Problem description: In view of the ongoing revision of EU legislation governing the use of agricultural products, there is a critical and immediate demand for the development of novel strategies to reduce the environmental impact and to potentiate sustainable agricultural practices while minimizing health risks. 

In this context, the development of novel technologies to minimize the direct manipulation of products by operators and/or enabling the targeted application of the compounds thereby reducing environmental drift is an urgent need.

Objective: LAINCO is looking for novel promising technologies aiming to revolutionize the current available strategies for product application in agriculture.

Expires on November 29, 2024

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