Aurelio Pavinato is CEO of SLC Agricola.
Agriculture is big business in Brazil, which is the fifth largest country in the world. It is a nation with a very well developed and professional farming sector and a number of large operators; SLC Agricola S.A., for example, farms about 400,000 hectares in the Cerrado region of the country. Its management team, headed by CEO Aurelio Pavinato, is constantly exposed to new technologies via its suppliers, partner companies, congresses and exhibitions (like Agritechnica, which is the world's leading agricultural machinery trade fair), and training courses. It also has a well-developed process for deciding if an innovative system has a place in the business.
The business operates 15 separate farms at elevations from 300 to 1,000 meters. Depending on the individual site, annual rainfall ranges from 1,200 to 2,000mm, and the climate, with average temperatures ranging from 22 to 27 Celsius, and fertile soils, mean many of the farms can achieve two crops each year. SLC Agricola uses a wide range of precision farming technologies that began being introduced about 12 years ago. More recently, a digital farming project, initiated in 2015, has been introduced to with the aim of making the management of inputs, machines and people even more efficient.
An aerial photograph of SLC Agricola's Pamplona farm.
The company has embraced the concept of “Green Future-Smart Technology”, which Agritechnica organizer DLG (German Agricultural Society) has chosen as the overall theme of this year's fair. The show is THE platform for the presentation of new developments in farming, and the theme recognizes the need for today's agriculture to be sustainable in terms of ecology, economy and human resources.
The way to achieve this, the DLG says, is for farmers to use all the available knowledge about interactions of plant and soil, technology and labor to develop appropriate farming systems. It is not surprising, therefore, that SLC Agricola has established an Agricultural Technologies Committee that assesses the needs of the business and the solutions that are available on the market; when a new solution is identified that meets a requirement, a proof of concept evaluation is carried out on one of its farms.
SLC Agricola mobilizes at least one senior team member to evaluate and use each new technology under test. As a minimum, the company expects to make a financial return within one to three years, but the multidisciplinary technology committee – whose role is to analyze results and approve the use of every new technology – will take the final decision.
Smart farming technologies already in use
Harvest maps are used across all but two of SLC Agricola's farms. These are created using the built-in technology on the company's John Deere harvesters, with GPS antennas, sensors and monitors supplying the data to build yield maps that provide a view of the status of each farm plot in terms of productivity after the harvest is concluded.
The size and locations of SLC Agricola's Brazilian farms.
The approach taken by the business in using the maps is to identify fields that have “non-standardized” yields, with these being subjected to grid soil sampling. The yield and soil data is then processed using SST Summit software to produce application maps that can be used to program the farms' John Deere tractors and various planters and application equipment to apply fertilizer at variable rates.
This initiative to correct uneven areas has resulted in a perceived cost reduction of 2 percent in phosphorus use and 5 percent for limestone, when compared to single-rate applications across the whole area.
The company also started to use variable-rate seed planting on 4,000 hectares during the 2016/17 season, using John Deere's built-in technology in its tractors and DB-series seed drills. The data input for this system is typically based on soil nutrient sampling, but SLC Agricola has taken a slightly different approach and is basing its seed rates on the clay content of the soil. The application maps are again processed using SST Summit software, and the system is only being used in fields where there are variations in the amount of clay in the soil.
A comprehensive fleet management solution is currently being used on all the vehicles in use at the business' Paiaguás Farm. On-board computers capture several types of data (hours of operation, speed, engine temperature and so on) from the tractors, harvesters and sprayers. This data is collected by the farm fuel truck, via a Bluetooth link, every time a machine is refueled, and when the truck returns to the farm headquarters, the data is transferred to the business' control center. This system, provided by Brazilian company Auteq (which was recently acquired by John Deere), generates a series of information on the fleet and its operation.
Cotton is a major crop at SLC Agricola's Panorama and Parnaíba farms, where RFID technology is used for the geographic positioning of each cotton bale after harvest. The farm's John Deere cotton harvester drops the bale and tags it with a chip. An employee then assesses each bale and classifies it based on visual aspects for the company's Ginning Process Quality Control system (know as QBEN).
This was system was developed internally by SLC Agricola's mechanization and IT team, and aims to manage the quality and traceability process at every step of the harvesting, ginning and storage process. It also provides an assessment of ginning efficiency. Knowing where each bale sits on the farm, and what quality it is, also allows the business to better organize the ginning process, and to reduce set-up times on the ginning machines.
Smart farming technology currently under test
There are also number of innovative farming technologies currently under test at SLC Agricola, including systems for mapping pest and disease outbreaks to allow the targeted use of crop-protection products. Using a system from Brazilian company Strider, the farm's “Mipeiros” (employees whose job involves the control of pests and diseases) use a tablet to make geotagged notes on the presence of pests or diseases in the field. This is then used to creates a “map” of infestation that allows the business to better direct spraying of chemicals.
The Strider system was approved by the company's Agricultural Technologies Committee, but then it was discovered that a similar product was available from TOTVS, an existing SLC Agricola software provider. This competing technology will now be tested before a final decision is made on which system to adopt.
While the Auteq system that is already in place provides basic telematics measurements on the machinery used on SLC Agricola's farms, the business is currently testing another solution that provides real-time information on the operation the machine is carrying out. Supplied by The Climate Corporation (owned by Monsanto), this technology helps measure the quality of the work being done.
A control unit is fitted to the machine, and this transmits data that can be monitored using a tablet computer. This shows detailed real-time information on the planting, harvesting or spraying process being undertaken so that the quality of the operation can be monitored and acted upon. For example, if a particular operator is missing parts of the field when planting or spraying, the speed of the operation can be controlled and slowed down to improve accuracy.
Alternatives to the Auteq fleet management solution are also currently under test at SLC Agricola. Brazilian Company Solinftec has created a MESH network solution where antennas are installed around the farm to automatically transmit data directly from machines to the control center, making the fuel truck's Bluetooth link obsolete. However, John Deere has also announced that it will soon have a similar solution based on antennas with 4G capability.
Finally, the company is examining the use of NDVI (normalized difference vegetations index) solutions that utilize infrared satellite images to evaluate the vegetative condition of the crop and make decisions on the use of top-dressed fertilization with urea, foliar fertilization, growth inhibitors and defoliants.
There are many suppliers for this type of technology in Brazil, and SLC Agricola ran tests with Argentinean company GeoAgro, Brazilian supplier CodexRemote and Geosys of France. The business notes that this technology is becoming much more accurate and affordable. In the recent past, the image quality has improved to the extent that one pixel now represents three meters on the ground when it used to represent 30 meters. And while it used to cost 10 Brazilian Real (2.75 euro) and take 10 days to process each image, that time is now four to 48 hours at a cost of just 10 Brazilian cents (3 euro cents) each.
Fundamental benefits from smart technology
SLC Agricola has definitely benefitted from the use of precision farming and smart technologies, with CEO Aurelio Pavinato saying that when working with large-scale production, a fundamental goal of using the technologies is increased efficiency.
“In the case of precision agriculture, our results point to a productivity increase of 3% in the managed areas,” he adds, “while adjusting inputs to the productive potential of each field through variable rate applications has allowed us to reduce the cost of fertilizers and crop protection products by up to 5%.”
However, not everything is running as smoothly as the company would like.
“In Brazil, we still have problems with data transmission that makes it difficult to introduce some technologies, but we are working to solve this problem,” Pavinato says. “And we would also expect to see more integration between the different management systems that are available.”
THE platform for new developments in farming
Agritechnica is THE platform for the presentation of new developments in farming, and this year the event organizer, the DLG (German Agricultural Society), has chosen the overall theme “Green Future-Smart Technology”. This recognizes the need for today's agriculture to be sustainable in terms of ecology, economy and human resources. The way to achieve this, it says, is for farmers to use all the available knowledge about interactions of plant and soil, technology and labor to develop appropriate farming systems.
Agritechnica 2017 will be held from 12-18 November (with preview days on 12/13 November) at Hanover's exhibition grounds. The exhibition halls will be packed with the latest technological developments, but there will also be exhibitors offering services and knowledge transfer, and this means the event has the products, experience and know-how to offer smart technologies to support farmers in practicing smart farming for a green future.
More information for international visitors considering a visit to the exhibition can be found online at www.agritechnica.com
