Inspirational idea: Digital tools in organic agriculture

For a Portuguese agricultural company producing organic grapes, digitalisation has become crucial to their decision-making processes. In order to achieve the sustainability goals they have identified, they use a digital-based management of all processes and operations, both for technical tasks in the field as well as for the management of the team and the whole operation.  

The company, Esporão S.A. grows organic grapes on around 702 ha of vineyards and they also have 92 ha of olive groves. It is located in the south of Portugal in Alentejo area, one of the hottest, driest parts of the country. Agricultural Manager Rui Flores tells us “Sustainability and being in balance with nature, is our main aim”. But this can be difficult to achieve in such a climate, and this is why they chose to turn to digital tools as a solution.  

Alentejo experiences extreme temperatures and it has poor and varied soils. However, it houses a significant range of biodiversity which the company strives to protect in order to work with and benefit from the surrounding environment.  

Rui continues “Digitalisation, as a fundamental part of precision agriculture, aims to increase knowledge and maintain a better control over the production system, which enables us to work in collaboration with the natural environment.” They use drones, probes and sensors in the fields as well as digital management programmes. “Collecting a lot of information, means we have more consistent and sustainable practices on the farm. We can increase crop yields whilst reducing impact on ecosystems.”  

Soil characteristics and variability, along with climate and topography, are essential factors that influence the yield/quality of grapes produced in a vineyard. Rui Flores continues “Therefore, it is very important to use all the tools (sensors and digitalisation) that we have at our disposal, to have a good knowledge of the soil before planting the crop, and thus respect the spatial variability of each of the plots.” 

In the daily management of activities, the company has developed a system which allows computerised management of all operations, facilitating decision-making and productive evaluation of all the different processes on the farm. It is based on an agricultural management and planning software which is accessible online.  

They map the production plots with a Geographic Information System (GIS) module that synthesises the spatial representation collected from production land in the form of detailed thematic maps (organised by sector, type of grape variety/crop, production line, type of soil, etc.). The software also allows for the scheduling of agricultural operations in the field providing workers with information on the tasks they should perform and record information as they achieve them. It is also helps manage and plan activities as it has a module to aggregate the data collected by operators and other key indicators.  

“At the moment, this system allows us to plan and record both manual and mechanical operations, evaluate the performance of work teams, make productivity reports and field notebooks, monitor the course and costs of ongoing activities, and control the efficiency of the treatments, and these are just a few of the functionalities,” said Rui. 

The company intends to develop further software that combines a GIS that brings together geospatial information on agricultural land, with a system for managing human and material resources related to agricultural activities.  According to Rui, “This tool will allow us to make a detailed resource management also adapted to our sustainability goals.”

Project contact

Rui Flores

+351 913 804 819 agricola@esporao.com

Agricultural Manager at Esporao S.A.