The European rice cultivation sector represents a value of about 700 million EURO’s per year. With around 120.000 hectare of rice fields and a production just short of 1 million tons, Spain represents 24% of Europe’s rice cultivation, and is only preceded by Italy, that produces the majority of Europe’s rice (57%). For both countries, rice doesn’t only represent an economical value, but also a cultural one, with world-renowned dishes as risotto in Italy, and paella in Spain.

In the Valencian region, the origin of paella and Spain’s fourth rice producing region, researchers of the GEOTEC research group (http://geotec.uji.es/) of the Universitat Jaume I (UJI) of Castellón (http://www.uji.es/) are now taking on the challenge of deploying high-tech solutions to help rice farmers improve the efficiency and yield of their rice cultivation. They do so in the context of the ERMES project, supported by the European Union under the 7th Framework Programme, and in cooperation with their colleagues from Universitat de Valencia (UVEG) and a consortium of universities in Italy, Switzerland and Greece.

“Several technological advances are now ripe for exploitation in various application areas, including agriculture, crop management and monitoring”, explains Prof. Joaquin Huerta, head of the Geotec research group. “Europe has invested considerably in launching satellites for earth observation with the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, and the Sentinel-2 mission is underway. The data obtained by these satellites are now becoming available, and the challenge is to analyse and exploit these satellite images to help our farmers in the field. Detecting weeds, plagues, drought or abnormal growth patterns are among to the possibilities.”

Bringing this information to the farmers is another challenge. Dr. Sven Casteleyn, lead investigator for UJI, points to wide availability of smartphones and tablets: “GEOTEC is specialised in geo-spatial technologies, where geographical features are somehow visualised and made accessible, along with other functionality, through interactive maps. We are going to build a web mapping portal, where relevant information such as weather conditions, sowing data, yields and other information can be retrieved. But we also strongly believe in the development and deployment of mobile applications, the so-called ‘apps’. These provide additional possibilities, such as in-field navigation, critical alerts for farmers and in-situ observations”.

UJI and UVEG are closely working together with the Arroz de Valencia Denominación de Origen, an organisation serving and protecting Valencian farmers and rice, as well as with local agricultural authorities. “This cooperation is vital for the success of the project”, says Dr. Carlos Granell, GEOTEC researcher working on the ERMES project. “Our Italian and Greek partners have similar local contacts. We hope to gain a deep understanding of the actual needs – in the field – and combine them with the technological possibilities we can offer. This is applied science, where it’s all about deploying technology to improve people’s lives, in this case, helping farmers in their day-to-day job, and ultimately, improve their efficiency.”