Sensors that detect a product’s ripeness and quality throughout processing could be a big factor in reducing the amount of food that goes to waste.
Smart farming sensors that detect a product’s quality throughout crop growth and processing can be a key factor in reducing the amount of food that goes to waste. Topic approached by David Curry, from RTInsights online magazine.
According to FAO – United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation – 14 percent of the world’s food is lost before it reaches the supermarket shelf. For any country that envisages meeting a Zero Hunger target in the upcoming years, this must be an area to look into, with brand new devices being developed to improve farming.
In a study published by Stellenbosch University researchers Jean Nturambirwe and Umezuruike Opara in Science Direct, three solutions were suggested: crop monitoring, post-harvest quality monitoring, and market quality monitoring.
According to Nturambirwe, “Machine learning has made great achievements in detecting plant diseases and fruit,”. “These new developments allow for fast and effective quality determination and prediction in fresh produce.”
Crop management comes in the form of sensors control in the ground and around the farm, to take all sorts of readings to facilitate decision making. These are then fed to an integrated system that is able to detect growth conditions, product ripeness, and environment changes, reducing losses at harvest.
Sensoterra, a world leader in smart farming with wireless soil moisture sensors, provides data-driven solutions for optimizing land and freshwater resources for agriculture, horticulture, landscaping, and Smart cities. We empower better decision making for crop management through precise soil moisture measurements, in single or multi-depth sensors.
Soil moisture sensors can be used to quickly determine soil health which directly influences crop quality, and consequently, in yield increase.
About Sensoterra
With thousands of Sensoterra sensors in the ground, generating over 60 million data points globally, Sensoterra was founded in 2014 and is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
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