NEED farming is a farming management concept based on observing, measuring and responding to differences in crops, soil, and other variables, thereby reacting to the individual needs of every single plant.
Precision farming is not precise enough. To make the next step in agriculture, we need care at the plant level. Back to the basics of farming: taking care of every individual plant, but armed with the latest technologies. In a nutshell, taking care of every plant’s individual needs, instead of the needs of a whole field, resulting in higher yields.
NEED farming is all about combining the knowledge of the farmer, with technology that enables him to apply this at the large scale on the plant level. A farmer has many sources of information from which he can gain knowledge about the vitality and the potential in order to take care of the plant, such as plant condition, soil condition, weather, historical yield maps, etc.
Caring for a plant on an individual basis happens through an increased application precision. Therefore, the yields and the use of crop protection agents and fertilizer decreases, ultimately creating more output and saving water, fuel and the environment. But for NEED farming, techniques are necessary to be able to apply the right resources to a single plant.
NEED farming Technology
In recent years, Agrifac has been working on developing brilliant simple solutions for spraying on the plant level. Agrifac is proud to present its newest features: DynamicDosePlus, SmartDosePlus, and AiCPlus, which now enable the farmer to spray on the plant level. With DynamicDosePlus, the farmer’s knowledge is translated and executed on a machine in the form of a prescription map at the plant level. AiCPlus enables real-time crop scanning and application. SmartDosePlus injects the crop February 2018 +26 +50 +60 +48 +26 +60 protection agents into the spray line, and clean water can be taken in the main tank to enlarge flexibility and user-friendliness.
NEED farming applied first experiences in different countries have shown excellent results. During the “potato desiccation demonstration” tour in the autumn of 2017 in the Netherlands, in collaboration with, among others: Dronewerkers, the Akkerweb Foundation, TopX and WUR, it was proven that substantial savings could be achieved without losing the quality of the spraying. Also from YP AG Ltd, York Peninsula, Australia the first positive experiences came back from trials, where during the growing season, weeds in the crop were sprayed site-specifically.
It is the only way to achieve our goal: sufficient, nutritious and safe food. NEED Farming, powered by Agrifac!
