The Principality has developed a network of ‘demo farms’ where researchers, producers and companies can test the application of new technologies to farming.
Asturias is working on a new model of agriculture and livestock farming that helps combat climate change and improve rural development. The key to modernising the sector lies in developing flagship projects aimed at an innovative, efficient and sustainable agri-food sector. A green and digital countryside underpinned by new connectivity technologies and artificial intelligence
For this shift towards digitalising Asturian farming, the Principality has developed a network of “demo farms” where researchers, producers and companies can test the application of new technologies to farming. At these facilities of the Servicio Regional de Investigación y Desarrollo Agroalimentario (Serida), live trials are carried out in the fields of sustainable production, circular economy, climate change adaptation, emissions reduction and biodiversity conservation, promoting the integration of the bioeconomy into the agri-food value chain.
There are six experimental farms in rural areas, spread across different parts of Asturias where Serida has sites; they represent different climatic conditions and ecosystems and cover a total area of 400 hectares available for agri-food R&D&I.
They have land and herds, complemented by greenhouses, growth chambers and laboratories equipped with advanced scientific and technical equipment. At these demo farms, projects are studied and trialled in plant genetics, meat quality, microbial cultures, and robots and sensors to optimise crop control and livestock management, as well as to study the sector’s impact on the greenhouse effect and how to help combat climate change.
Among other actions, for example, research is being carried out on feed supplements for dairy cattle, with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving animal welfare, and several studies focus on conserving the genetic resources of native domestic breeds.
The proposals include strategies to improve soil health and to study how the region’s characteristic crops, such as apple trees and the faba bean, can adapt to climate change, by developing new varieties, rootstocks and suitable growing techniques – areas in which Serida has extensive experience.
The Asturian agri-food sector contributes 1.7 billion euros to regional GDP. Its value chain, which spans from the primary to the tertiary sector, “provides us with a structural basis to position the Principality as a strategic benchmark for green and digital agri-food production, based on sustainable management of natural resources combined with rural development”, says the regional Minister for Science, Borja Sánchez.
The Agroalnex project
These facilities are part of the Complementary Agri-food Plan (Plan Complementario de Agroalimentación), through the Agroalnex project, and feature emerging technologies for precision agriculture, real-time monitoring and data-driven decision-making.
Serida’s director, Mamen Oliván, explains that the work on these farms “not only allows us to obtain more accurate results, but also to provide concrete examples of how these technologies can revolutionise food production”.
In the field of digitalisation, precision agriculture has been promoted and tools are being developed that incorporate sensors, Artificial Intelligence (AI) or the Internet of Things (IoT) to enable the control and monitoring of crop and livestock farms.
One of the first steps in this direction was the launch last February of the first 5G laboratory, in Villaviciosa, available to the Asturian agri-food sector. This facility paves the way for smart agriculture and livestock farming, with a wireless data connectivity system that makes it possible to monitor crops or livestock, automate production processes or bring robotics into the field.
The 5G laboratory serves to advance precision agriculture and test technology applied to detecting pests, nutrient deficiencies, temperature, humidity, irrigation or any other parameter of interest. It can also be used as a test bed for autonomous farm machinery, drone-based remote sensing, high-resolution image transmission or livestock monitoring.
Public-private collaboration between research centres, technology centres and companies, with the support of the regional administration, plays a fundamental role in digitalising Asturian farming. One of the latest projects aims precisely to achieve pest-resistant crops capable of adapting to climate change.
Seresco, an ICT company; Idonial, a technology centre; and Serida, the Principality’s research service, are working to apply artificial intelligence to agriculture through methods for analysing and detecting early the diseases that affect the faba bean.
The ongoing projects focus on aphid detection, with the Plago project, and more recently Beanbot, to combat powdery mildew, which also includes real-time cloud processing of the algorithms. Research is now starting to develop new techniques and tools for detecting and quantifying insect pests and invasive species. For now they are focusing on faba bean cultivation, but the method could be exported to other crops.
Jonatan Fandiño, an industrial chemical engineer at the Idonial technology centre, explains that the aim is to apply computer vision to identify disease patterns in faba bean crops. To do so, algorithms fed with programming and images are used, together with IoT (Internet of Things) technologies to track how the pest evolves through measurements of temperature, humidity and environmental conditions.
The goal, Fandiño says, is to give farmers tools to monitor their plantations in real time and anticipate pests. “We try to have preventive tools; we study how the disease evolves and we get ahead of it. Ultimately, we are working for the agriculture of the future. All the pests we are seeing stem from climate change and spread more easily because of the CO₂ added to the atmosphere, and what we want is to be able to anticipate pests and use resources efficiently, avoiding extensive spraying that affects soil quality, and making the most of water and material resources”.
Along similar innovative lines, but applied to livestock farming, the Asturian “startup” Agrolinera is working on launching a whey management system for artisan cheese dairies, to be located in Tielve, Cabrales, in the surroundings of the Picos de Europa National Park. The prototype will digitalise whey management at these artisan cheese dairies, reducing collection costs and capturing its value. To do so, it will use a containerised, automated system connected to a cloud platform that stores the data from each whey discharge and monitors and coordinates collection, so that the whey is sent to a treatment point efficiently and safely.
This pioneering method will help sustain the rural communities that live from artisan cheesemaking and help retain population in rural areas. Local dairy farming, the driving force of the rural Asturian economy, in turn depends on these cheese dairies.
In the medium and long term, the Principality is focusing on the crops of the future, adapted to climate change, and on following the European Farm to Fork strategy, that is, creating a food chain that works for consumers, producers, the climate and the environment. The intersections of the agri-food sector with other strategies, such as ‘One Health’ or personalised nutrition and medicine, are also being explored.
One line of the agriculture of the future has a common thread: underground cultivation in former mines. The first step is already under way with a pilot project to be installed in the coming weeks at the Carrio pit, in the Nalón mining district, as part of a broader and more ambitious initiative called AgroCarrio. Serida and the company Cantábrica Agricultura Urbana will install a hydroponic growing system without natural light, using LED lighting, in an old gallery, with the aim of studying which types of vegetables are best suited to growing in certain conditions.
In the long term, attention is turning to a disruptive project linked to positioning Asturias in aerospace research programmes, by recreating lunar habitability conditions, also in former mines. In this line of research, the regional Minister for Science points to the Artemis programme, whose ultimate goal is to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon, and which will require “new technological developments that make it possible, for example, to grow certain food sources in hostile conditions”, he explains. To this end, the Principality has included agri-food in the regional drive to convert disused former mining facilities for R&D.