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Farming by Satellite Prize

Deadline: 
15 June 2020 - 12:00
Type of available opportunity: 
Prizes & competitions
Status of the opportunity: 
Open for submission
GNSS segment: 

 

Every other year, GSA (European Global Navigation Satellite System Agency) sponsors the Farming by Satellite Prize. The biennial prize is open to students and young farmers with innovative ideas about using satellite technology to improve agricultural production, efficiency and profit. The 2020 edition further extended the prize to the African region.


Launched in 2012, the prize, an initiative of GSA and the European Environment Agency (EEA) was open to students and young farmers across Europe. The goal was to offer a platform for people with innovative ideas about using satellite technology to improve agricultural production, efficiency and profit, or to reduce the sector’s environmental impact. Since the first year, the topics have broadened significantly and nowadays range from geo-referenced online data platforms, swarm technologies, precision seed planting robots to the crop type detection&evaluation systems and a new forecasting system for rice production. In 2020, a new category of the Special Africa Prize, designed to encourage young Africans to develop satellite-based solutions responding to the local specific needs, was introduced.
 
The challenge of the last 2018 edition was “How can we use satellite technologies to improve agriculture and reduce environmental impact?”. It received 42 submissions from 17 countries in total. The first prize went to a team from Teagasc, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority, took the first prize in this year’s Farming by Satellite competition with FODDERApp, a mobile app for grass and grazing management. Second prize went to the pan-European team TREASURE for their project "GALILEO for automated transplanting of crop seedlings"; and the project "Copernicus Satellites Data Fusion for Management Zones Definition" from the University of Padua’s Space Junk team took third prize. “The outcome of this year´s Farming by Satellite Prize once again showed there is no better way for innovation than investing in and rewarding the next generation of farmers. The amount and quality of the entries we received indicate that we have interesting times ahead in the area of smart farming,” said GSA Market Development Officer Reinhard Blasi, who was part of the judging panel.

Promoting precision

Precision agriculture is a highly effective farming strategy that allows farmers to better allocate inputs, such as seeds and fertilisers, to increase productivity, lower costs and minimise the environmental impact. Traditionally, the main obstacle to wide-scale application of precision agriculture has been the substantial investment required. EGNOS and Galileo fundamentally change the equation by offering high precision at low cost.

The main advantages of satellite technologies in agriculture include high accuracy and the repeatability of the same action year on year. These two fundamental advantages lead to valuable benefits, including:

  • reduced waste through the over-application of fertilisers and herbicides;
  • reduced seed consumption;
  • fuel and time savings;
  • lower fatigue;
  • extended equipment life;
  • optimised crop yields.

Registration

The Farming by Satellite Prize is open to both individuals and teams from universities or commercial organisations. To compete, one must submit case studies, new ideas or innovations that rely on EGNOS, Galileo or Copernicus. The new Call is now open, you can find more information on the new call here and apply here by 15 June, 12:00 CET.
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Read More: 

Farming by Satellite 2018 : Teagasc takes first prize

2017 Farming by Satellite Prize winners announced

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

Updated: Mar 25, 2020