Belgium to use satellites and drones to increase potato crop
Belgium has become the biggest exporter of frozen potatoes in the world, volume-wise, but is pardoxically also the biggest importer of fresh potatoes.
Their potato crop is historically high, at 80,000 hectares, but it is planned to further increase production, and use more home-grown potatoes for processing.
Over a quarter of Belgium’s processed potatoes is exported outside of the European Union, and exports are expected to increase to regions like China and India, where French fries and other processed potato products are becoming more popular.
Hence the plan to increase sustainable potato production, through the iPot project.
Among its aims are to help growers optimise production, and harvest at the ideal time.
Data is seen as the key to this, and iPot will regroup data from crop observations, with soil maps and weather information to inform better crop decisions.
Drones take photos of potato fields, linked to information supplied by satellite images.
Efficient monitoring of the growth, development, and yield of the potato crop is the aim of the project, with benefits to be delivered to the grower by 2017.
Growers will be alerted so as to intervene faster, and better, in case of problems.
Processors will also benefit.
“If we know what growth stage the potatoes are in and what the estimated yield is, we can also use that well for planning and logistics,” an iPot spokesperson said.
iPot is a project with partners from the potato trade and processing (Belgapom), and researchers from Flanders and Wallonia (VITO, CRA-w and ULg), financed by the Federal Science Policy (BELSPO).
