A farming Robot that helps reconnecting urban people with the natural environment.
Many forms of Urban Farming aim to promote socialization and learning through the production of food in urban or peri-urban areas. However, many aspects of urban life are incompatible with the commitment and attention required by the cultivation of a crop field. Geosmin is a pilot project that will show how technology, a farming robot with internet connection and a powerful software, can give urban people a chance to fit a piece of nature in their daily lives.
National
Italy
Azeglio (TO), Piemonte, Italy
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Hortobot srl Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Vincenzo Last name of representative: Alfieri Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: CTO Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Carlo Viola, 78 Town: Pont Saint Martin (AO) Postal code: 11026 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 375 561 4881 E-mail:vincenzo.alfieri@hortobot.com Website:https://www.hortobot.com/index.php/it/
With the increasing urbanization of people the need to restore some form of relationship with the natural world is also increasing, if possible in a way compatible with urban lifestyles. Many forms of Urban Farming aim to this purpose by promoting socialization through the production of food in urban or peri-urban areas. Shared urban gardens and educational gardens are widespread in many European cities and are a reliable tool to develop awareness of the beauty and fragility of the natural environment. However, many aspects of urban life are incompatible with the commitment and attention required by the cultivation of a crop field. With the Geosmin Project we intend to demonstrate an innovative use case of the Hortobot system, and how technology can bring urban and rural worlds closer for the benefit of individuals, families, schools and people with disabilities.
The Geosmin Project includes the Hortobot agricultural Robot and a crop field of size up to 5000m2 arranged in smaller areas (30 to 50m2), granted in use to interested people for growing different types of crops (horticultural, aromatic, flowers); with the model "when you can't, the Robot will do it for you", the user will not have the constraint of a continuous daily commitment, thus reducing the risk of giving up, and people with physical difficulties will be allowed to adjust the effort according to their possibilities. With a web browser and an internet connection , the user can see his portion of the field and decide which operations to do in person and what to delegate to the Robot. The software interface is also a tool for learning: information on cultivated plants (characteristics, needs, seasonality) are reported, and environmental data (temperatures, wind, rain, sunlight, atmospheric pressure) are recorded and displayed; how Nature changes over the seasons will be documented and ordered, thus becoming a learning base and an experience for the following years.
Urban farming
Biodiversity
Learning by doing
Social inclusion
Scalability
The forms of Urban Farming to which the Geosmin project refers, Educational gardens and Shared gardens, represent an intrinsically sustainable form of agriculture because the work done is mainly manual and the use of chemicals for cultivation is banned.
The Hortobot Robot has several features that keep sustainability in the Geosmin Project:
- fully electric power, integrated by solar panels, and low power consumption;
- saving of water with precise on-row irrigation system; the amount of water released is automatically adjusted according to the environmental conditions and the needs of each individual crop;
- reduction of soil compaction thanks to the bridge crane structure that does not require moving among crop rows; the softness of the soil and the appropriate frequency of aeration favor the development of roots and aerobic bacteria, eliminating the need of chemical fertilizers;
- designed to manage a mixed-cropping field, thus supporting biodiversity and allowing some virtuous cultivation practices such as companion planting, in which the mutual protection that is naturally activated between related plants eliminates the need to use chemical pesticides.
When we move out of our cities and observe big parts of the landscape covered with mono-cultural cultivation we know that we are in a rural environment, but we perceive something unnatural in what we see, this is because actually monoculture in nature does not exist. If we stop taking care of a field and abandon it to itself, after a few years we will have a forest or a meadow populated by various types of plants and not an uniform spread of a single specimen. Although we are rationally aware of how industrial agriculture is able to support the food demand of the growing world population, we are naturally inclined to define "beautiful" an environment full of different plants and flowers. For anyone who does not have direct access to the land, the possibility of being able to somehow participate in the establishment of a pleasant environment is the engine of many examples of traditional urban farming. With the Geosmin Project we offer everyone the opportunity to take care of a piece of land without the normal constraints of competence, constancy of commitment or physical abilities; being able to grow different types of plants, from vegetables to aromatic herbs to flowers, anyone can finally get a plot full of colors and biodiversity.
Community and Educational gardens respond to the need of urban communities to meet, learn, and connect with the natural world. However, there are categories of people that cannot easily take on these initiatives due to physical difficulties or the inability of maintaining the constancy of commitment that Nature requires, especially in the summer periods that are normally dedicated to holidays. The risk of giving up after the start is also high, and in this case in addition to the economic damage there is also a general loss of interest. A partial solution to the problem is the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) model, a type of relationship between producer and consumer that arises in the Urban Farming context: people who recognize the importance of sustainable agriculture, although not able to deal with it directly, support economically the local farms through a pre-season subscription on their fruit and vegetable production, also sharing with the farmer the risk of loss of production. CSAs are indeed a great support for local agriculture but in this case the relationship between the urban individuals and the natural environment is less effective . With the Geosmin project we intend to demonstrate a use case of the Hortobot system that offers an innovative solution to the problem giving the possibility of an active and continuous activity compatible with the limits of commitment of people on one side and with the rhythms of Nature on the other side, preserving and supporting the experiences in a "learning by doing" context.
See below paragraph "Scope of progress in the implementation of the initiative" in which, according to the master plan, how and when citizens are involved is described.
See below paragraph "Scope of progress in the implementation of the initiative" in which, according to the master plan, how and when Stakeholders are involved is described.
The educational part is a fundamental aspect of the Geosmin Project because it contributes to the goal of creating a stable relationship between the user and the public or private body that will adopt the Geosmin solution. The software is the means through which the user not only defines the operations to be done on his part of the field, but also learns about the crops he wants to grow (characteristics, needs, seasonality), and about the environment.
Regarding the environment, the information made available by the sensors installed on board the Robot provide interesting educational ideas in other disciplines beside agronomy, for example, geography and astronomy. By asking the Robot to take an image of its shadow at midday of each sunny day, we will see how the shadow lengthens or shortens with the passing of the seasons, identify the solstices, understand what determines summer and winter and detect the latitude. The ambient light sensor will show us how the length of the day varies throughout the year, and the thermal sensor will tell us how average temperatures follow this curve; by asking the Robot to take an image of the same plant every day we will have a time-lapse of its life cycle and will see how environmental conditions accelerate or slow down its growth. Actually there is nothing extraordinary on this, but it all comes from a single source and is strictly related to our piece of land.
The Geosmin Project looks at the general context of Urban Farming and in particular it refers to the models of Community gardens, Educational gardens, and for some aspects, to CSAs, whose wide spread across Europe demonstrate the need of people to establish and maintain a more direct relationship with the food they consume and with the environment from where it comes. One of the critical issues of these models is represented by the difficulty for people living in urban environments, aged people or people with disabilities in undertaking and following with continuity these experiences. The result is that even the learning opportunity is compromised. With the Geosmin Project we propose a solution to the problem by using the Hortobot robotic system to maintain the cultivation when the user is unable to go personally on site, allowing him to manage his portion of the field also remotely through an internet connection.
We expect that the Geosmin system can be replicated in many European urban areas, subject to the availability of a crop field of appropriate size (30 X 100to200 meters), well exposed and flat. While the functionality of the Robot and software user interface will be common for all installations, some technical changes may be necessary for the operation of the Robot in particularly cold or hot climates. However, adaptations of the user interface will be necessary for the local language and for local typical crops. While first level technical assistance will be done via Internet connection and onboard diagnostics, Hortobot will identify a technical workshop in the installation area which will be trained for second level technical assistance of the Robot. In some cases, Hortobot will evaluate the opportunity to identify a local partner also for the production and the assembly of mechanical parts.
With reference to following paragraph "Scope of progress in the implementation of the initiative", our approach is: build, test, communicate, evaluate, funding and go to market. We are aware of the risks involved in putting the expensive construction and testing phases before business evaluation, but the level of innovation of this initiative and the lack of direct references makes it difficult to have a reliable evaluation of the Business case without getting data from a concrete and working example.
The Hortobot Robot is a unique example of automation developed for small farms that sell their products directly or through local markets. In general, automation in agriculture follows the tractor model and focuses on industrial food production. The tractor model finds its best application in monoculture, a production system that has the indisputable advantage of being able to produce food in big quantities but that is now showing the effects of its strong environmental impact. The most traditional forms of agriculture, such as those that preserve biodiversity with mixed cropping, are niches in danger of disappearing due to the considerable amount of manual labor needed, but that seem to find new life in urban or peri-urban areas where the population is increasingly interested in understanding from where comes their food and how is it produced.
Hortobot fits into this context by providing the local farmer with a tool capable of reducing the hours in the field so he can improve his direct relationship with the final customer, an aspect that the industrial farmer does not see. Although industrial agriculture is taking steps towards sustainability, it will be the market, and therefore consumers, that will eventually impose a breakthrough. The small local farmers, and Hortobot with its Geosmin application will not feed the entire world, but may help in developing the level of people awareness that will.
The Geosmin Project develops over time in 5 steps; below is described how and when citizens and stakeholders are involved in the initiative and current state of development.
STEP 1 (June 2022 – June 2023, in progress) : look for funding of the project (in progress); build of a 24 meter Hortobot Robot with solar panels (in progress); identification of a farm to host the project with a field of suitable size (done); find qualified agronomic support (done); find 3 local volunteers, individuals or families, that will be assigned of 3 portions of the field of 25sqm each (in progress); evaluation of applicable European regulations for the safety of people and property (done).
STEP 2 (June 2023 – October 2024, to be done): start of cultivation; analysis of critical issues and usability of the software interface; evaluation of yields; evaluation of needed improvements.
STEP 3 : (November 2023 – March 2024, to be done) :
implementation of improvements; launch of a social communication campaign; presentation of the running Project to Stakeholders and collection of feedbacks ( n.3 Municipalities of different sizes; n.3 Agritourisms and Km0 farms of different sizes; n.3 Schools (Primary school, Agricultural school, Catering school), 1 Cooperative Society for the support of people with disabilities; extension of the number of users (up to 5).
STEP 4 (March 2024 – October 2024, to be done): cultivation of the field with extended users; evaluation of costs and yields, evaluation of user’s rental prices suitable in the public and private context; evaluation of the scalability of the Project; assessment of the level of interest of stakeholders.
STEP 5 : (November 2024 onwards): Evaluation based on data about of the sustainability of the Use Case (economic, social, educational) for the different stakeholders; documentation of the Business Case, definition of a Business Plan; search for Investors for the scalability of the application.
We believe that the Geosmin project can be relevant with respect to the "Quality education and training for all" statement within the European Education Area.
In particular, by providing an instrument that can give to teaching institutions a daily and active access to a natural environment, either directly or online, and providing structured information on how the environment changes over time, we are in line with some specific European advices to Member States on learning for green transition, in particular for what concerns "create supportive learning environments for sustainability that span all activities and operations by an educational institution and enable teaching and learning that is hands-on, interdisciplinary and relevant to local contexts" and "actively involve students and staff, local authorities, youth organisations and the research and innovation community in learning for sustainability".
