Trapview is our automated pest monitoring solution which allows growers to remotely monitor pest insects caught in their pheromone traps. Growers are no longer required to visit their traps in the fields (reduce personnel and travel expenses). They are also alerted in real-time when the high number of pest insects calls for insecticide spraying. This allows growers to optimize the use of insecticides and consequently grow healthier crops with less insecticide residues. The society benefits by eating healthier food and reducing the chance of pest insects being resistant to insecticides. We have existing revenues from having sold 1000+ of such traps. During this project we will (1) finish developing additional features that will even further reduce the need for field visits and make the computer vision automatic insect detection more accurate, (2) allocate a dense network (1000+) of these improved traps to growers of tomatoes in South Europe to monitor the pest insect Helicoverpa armigera, (3) use machine learning to develop statistical models that will aggregate data from this network of traps and allow for monitoring and predicting the occurrences of pest insects on a larger geographical scale, (4) commercialize the developed solution with new business models to existing and new customers. After the project, we will be able to move from a product-selling to an information-selling and extend our business models to cover also agriculture advising and multinational agrochemical companies. By 2022, this would allow us to grow our revenues from €600k/y to €8M/y and number of employees from 15 to 46. With the funding and successful execution of the proposed plan, EFOS Ltd. would become the most important high-tech eco-innovative provider of automated pest monitoring solutions worldwide.

CERBERUS will capitalize on early detection to reduce pesticide use and on intelligent spray applications to sustainably eradicate pests at their early stages, when damage is reduced and the impact of treatments is high even with low spray rates. The project will combine large-scale crop observation models enhanced by the high revisiting time and diversity of bands offered by Copernicus, with the high reliability of proximal sensing granted by IoT insect traps reporting at a daily basis, robot-based monitoring at less than 1 m from the crops, and the granularity resulting from citizen data using dedicated apps. Data coming from multiple sources will be merged through a cloud platform, which will produce risk maps and spraying recommendations for users by applying AI algorithms. CERBERUS will be the outcome of a multi-actor approach by co-creating and sharing knowledge with all the different type of actors along the whole project. Cerberus will be validated for three quarantine pests (F. dorée, X. fastidiosa, B. dorsalis) and three commonly managed pests (L. botrana, B. oleae, C. capitata), and for the three most important specialty crops in the Mediterranean basin: wine-production vineyards, olive oil producing orchards, and citrus plantations. The multi-actor approach will be strengthened by the complementarity of the consortium: three academic partners, three technology companies, one citizen science specialist, a government agency involved in crop protection, and five end-users from Italy, Cyprus and Spain, providing two pilot plots per country and target crop. The proposed concept and methodology of CERBERUS has the potential to deploy an innovative crop surveillance system, enhanced by early detection in high-value crops to firmly step ahead in the effective application of sustainable phytosanitary measures and in the co-creation of crop protection policies.

Forests have an important role in the achievement of the objectives of the European Green Deal. Forest trees are increasingly threatened by invasive pests, with many of them being regulated in the Union territory. FORSAID has as an overall goal to develop a comprehensive combination of innovative digital technologies aimed at detecting regulated forest pests at an early stage, surveying their occurrence in the territory, and providing essential information for the adoption of phytosanitary measures to limit their spread and impacts. The project adopts a multi-actor and multidisciplinary approach tailored to develop and favour the adoption of digital technologies at different spatial and temporal scales associated with a selected list of important regulated forest pests. The Internet of Things (IoT) will be used to create networks of insect traps for major guilds of insects, thanks to innovative deep learning analysis of images sent remotely from the traps. Robotized devices will be developed and tested for the automatic barcoding of the captured pests. Drones equipped with sensors will be used for the scanning of plant health status through the measure of physiological variables. Remote sensing techniques will be used to validate existing ground-truth data on the occurrence of tree alterations associated with abiotic and biotic factors, and models based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will be developed to discriminate different types of stresses as soon as they appear. An economic analysis will address the costs and benefits of using digital technologies for the detection and surveillance measures, considering the economic, environmental, and social impacts of regulated pests in EU forests. Stakeholders from the forest sector will be involved in a multi-actor approach to drive the research to applicable results and co-construct guidelines for the best use of new digital technologies for forest pest detection and monitoring.

SMARTPROTECT is a thematic network focusing on cross regional knowledge sharing of SMART IPM solutions for farmers and advisors. The aim is to stimulate knowledge flow in the regional AKISs across the EU and connect these on the innovative potential of advanced methodologies for Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in vegetable production, integrating precision farming technologies and data analytics. Through a well-balanced consortium and an emphasis on multi-actor approach the outcome of the project and exploitation of its results will stimulate an increased adaptation of IPM methodologies, taking the specific regional needs of farmers across Europe into account. The EU-wide concern for environmental sustainability and economic competitiveness for agriculture requires the entire agriculture sector to grow under IPM conditions. This project develops a basis for a common EU approach to collecting, sharing, managing and disseminating knowledge on IPM in order to maximise the knowledge flow. Farmers from different European regions will thus dispose of the latest knowledge, best practices and practical tools for the implementation of IPM in their daily practice in crops in open field and greenhouses. The project provides an e-platform for exchange on a variety of innovative IPM techniques. We will benchmark practices in the frame of their socio-economic and regulatory context, select those with a high innovation potential and disseminate them through participatory events including cross border exchange visits. Local and regional knowledge sharing will lead to interactive cross-regional seminars for farmers and advisors, resulting in a final SMARTPROTECT innovation rally. The project’s results will be deployed through a targeted communication and wide dissemination strategy, providing an online data sharing platform and close interaction with EU and national initiatives and projects, the National Rural Networks and the EIP-AGRI.