09. December 2019

FarmFacts is a partner of the upcoming Farm & Food conference in Berlin

Interview with Dr. Josef Bosch

Agriculture can be sustainable and economically sound at the same time – that is the message of Dr. Josef Bosch’s from FarmFacts. And a good reason for him to support Farm & Food 4.0.

By Sarah Liebigt

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Farm & Food: Dr. Bosch, what are you doing for farmers to make their world easier?

Dr. Josef Bosch: Today, agriculture is met with a lot of tension. It is seen as a negative factor in the environmental system. However, we believe that it is actually part of the solution. We want to help farmers on their way into the future, because we must feed this planet and at the same time ensure that it does not collapse under its weight.

The digital solutions we are presenting today are designed to help farmers document their work and, on the other hand, to help restore their economic success.

Farmers can use satellite data in a variety of ways. In your opinion, which application is currently best suited for the farmer?

The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) says we need to become more efficient. This is one of the basic principles of the United Nations. If we want to achieve this, we have to develop new technology, and the satellite helps us tremendously: it can not only look at the planet, but almost into the fields. With the help of satellite data, we can now provide information about a soil’s fertilizer requirements, for example, or how we treat the plants, or how we secure the corresponding humus content in the soil. We can use this data to develop solutions with which farmers can demonstrably work sustainably and still develop economically.

This means that the first step is to focus on the farmer. How do you think BigData can also help close the current gap between farmers and society?

We need to link the things dedicated to healthy and successful nutrition (fertilizing, crop protection, sowing, etc.) to farmers’ incomes. At the same time, the farmer must be able to prove that these things do not have a negative impact on the environment, but a positive impact: through the promotion of biodiversity, etc. These are the tools with which we can improve the reputation of farmers in society.

The development of the data network in rural areas is still an ongoing issue. In your experience, what role does inadequate grid connection play in reality?

Today we have high-tech machines that always need a connection to the Internet. If this connection is missing in the long run, these machines will not be able to work. Sometimes insufficient coverage has us working with buffered data temporarily, which is an obstacle. The other problem is that the demands on the technology on these machines are constantly increasing. So we need a fast data flow, we need to bring a lot of data quickly to where the action is. If this is not guaranteed, the machines cannot work properly.

Are there areas of work that FarmFacts have not yet been recorded or whose recording is currently being worked on?

The keyword here is climate change. We are working flat out on solutions that will help farmers cushion the effects of climate change.

Finally, what does FarmFacts expect from the upcoming Farm & Food in Berlin? Who do you want to meet?

Counteracting climate change and bringing ecology and economy together is a global challenge – nobody can do it alone. We have to coordinate internationally, we have to coordinate with colleagues from other industries along the value chain. And that must happen with a common goal: that is what we expect from the next Farm & Food.