The Future Food Institute and SMAU sign a partnership for the digital transformation and innovation of the agri-food sector.
Sara Roversi – founder of Future Food Institute – and Valentina Sorgato AD of SMAU, on the occasion of the Venetian stage of SMAU, have signed a strategic agreement to enhance and promote innovation in the agri-food sector.
Padova 29 Marzo. With a view to jointly carrying out actions aimed at the enhancement, diffusion, innovation and digitalisation of the agri-food sector, the Future Food Institute and SMAU have today signed, in the frame of SMAU Padova, a three-year strategic agreement that will see the two realities together on the national stages and international SMAU Roadshow.
“For years we have been working with Smau, since 1964 a timeless reference event on innovation, increasingly open thanks to the involvement of startups, companies and administrations “, says Sara Roversi, founder of Future Food Institute. She went on to say, “From this year we are structuring a more articulated collaboration , to consolidate the promotion of the Italian System and guarantee the monitoring of innovation applied to the agri-food sector which today represents not only a business opportunity but also a need to generate an exponential impact in social, environmental and cultural terms.”
“As SMAU we take care of telling about the concrete innovations coming from the leading sector of Made in Italy”, added Valentina Sorgato, CEO of SMAU. He went on to say, “Agrifood is certainly a sector with very high potential and, through collaboration with the Future Food Institute, we will be talking at both national and international levels about the many opportunities and the most significant experiences to offer ideas to companies that want to undertake a path of innovation”.
The agrifood sector is widely recognized as one of the key sectors for Made in Italy and for the international promotion of the excellence of the Italian system that, through digital transformation and innovation generates value.
The common goal of SMAUand the Future Food Institute is to make food innovation a key theme through the presentation of concrete experiences of innovation within Agrifood by both Italian and international companies.
It’s in SMAU Padova, that the collaboration has come to life. Thanks to the direction of Sara Roversi, some experiences of companies, that have leveraged innovation as a means to compete, have been presented today. One such company is Lattebusche, a dairy cooperative, that for more than 60 years has been focusing on innovation to offer new products to their consumers. A continuous investment, which over time has borne its fruits. In fact, today the company has six production establishments and a record turnover of over 100 million euros like Caffini, a Verona-based company that produces atomisers and sprayers for open field treatments.
The company presented T & Trac, an electronic system applicable to all agricultural machines, that allows digital authentication and therefore automatic tracking of operations and treatments performed by the machines. The solution can also be installed on machines that are already in use and can be used to make IoT and precision agriculture solutions that will soon take to the field. In the Live Show conducted by Roversi, solutions developed by the local startups to support innovation in the agriculture sector were presented. This included the AgriOpenData Blockchain for Food platform created by EZ Lab: the online platform for traceability and certification of agricultural products. This uses Blockchain technology and Smart Contracts as a security system for the entire food chain, to guarantee the origin of environmental sustainability and the upholding of ethical values.
The Padova-based startup Archetipo, presented its remote sensing and monitoring services using drones. The company specializes in crop remote sensing, using multispectral and thermal sensors, to define the main vegetation indexes. Using this technology it also creates geo-referenced prescription maps for the planning of agronomic interventions and produces three-dimensional models of land for the description of yields, slopes, drains and erosions. Additionally, for pre-planting preparation, it offers a water stress assessment service and provides support in the processing of data collected in the field. Padova also plays host to Prorob, a startup which at SMAU presented ProNet-IoT.
This is a hardware/software platform that monitors and controls smart greenhouses in order to increase productivity and reduce environmental impact. With ProNet-IoT, it is possible to monitor and control environmental and nutritional parameters, energy resources and lighting during all stages of cultivation. The system allows the user to manage all emergency situations through a single alarm configuration interface.
The next stages that will see Smau and Future Food Institute together will be Smau London (10-11-12 April), Smau Bologna (6-7 June), Smau Berlin (19-20-21 June), Smau Milan (22-23- 24 October) and Smau Naples (12-13 December).