Author Archives: firadelleida

The Lleida-based company Aerofor offers pilot training, aircraft distribution and advice to farmers.

The spraying of crops with drones in the Lleida area will take a quantum leap in the coming years thanks to companies like Aerofor, which is dedicated to pilot training, distribution and advice on the use of these unmanned aircraft. This was stated today by the commercial director and co-founder of Aerofor, Eduard Ibáñez, during the conference “Drones in agriculture, what now?”, which took place in the Technology Agora of the Area 5G de Ponent, “LleidaON”, in Pavilion 4 of Fira de Lleida, during the 67th edition of the Sant Miquel Agricultural Fair (National Agricultural Machinery Show) and the 36th edition of Eurofruit (Professional Fair of Suppliers to the Fruit Industry).

Aerofor, a company from Lleida, will make a firm commitment next year to spraying with drones and plans to apply phytosanitary treatments to more than 2,000 hectares, more than half of which will be in the Lleida area, according to Ibáñez. In any case, in his speech, he wanted to clarify that aircraft are very suitable, above all, for the treatment of extensive crops, such as rice or maize, but not so much for fruit trees. According to him, fruit trees that are more than 3 years old have foliage that makes it difficult for drone spraying to permeate. It is not ideal for vines either, although it depends on the type of treatment and the conditions under which it has to be done.

However, Ibáñez encouraged this type of treatment with drones whenever possible, either by acquiring and flying an aircraft or by contracting specialised companies. The Aerofor co-founder explained that the European Union is working on a new European directive for 2023, which will then have to be rolled out with a new royal decree and regulations with the aim, in principle, of differentiating between drones and aircraft and simplifying the permits and bureaucracy for making unmanned flights.

While all this is in the pipeline, Ibáñez advised following all the current indications and even advising the authorities in the area where the flights are to be made beforehand to avoid conflicts. He also advised using the ENAIRE Drones application, a Grupo Fomento company that manages air navigation in Spain, to fly drones safely. After his talk, the attendees were able to enjoy a demonstration of a large, high-capacity drone designed for crop spraying in Pavilion 4 of Fira de Lleida.

This year’s Sant Miquel Fair has a stand in Pavilion 4 of the Area 5G de Ponent “Lleida ON”, which functions as a technology agora with a packed programme of activities. The initiative is supported by the Catalan Government’s Department of Digital Policy and Public Administration and is being carried out as part of Catalonia’s 5G Strategy, with the collaboration of Mobile World Capital Barcelona, the i2CAT Foundation, the Lleida Chamber of Commerce, Lleida Provincial Council, Lleida City Council and Telefónica.

The Catalan Minister for Climate Action, Food and the Rural Agenda inaugurates the 67th edition of the Fira de Sant Miquel and the 36th Eurofruit trade fair

Teresa Jordà, Minister of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda of the Generalitat de Catalunya, has vindicated the role of farmers and livestock farmers in the management of the territory and has stated that “they must earn a living”. This is what she said today during her speech at the inauguration of the 67th edition of the Sant Miquel Fair (National Agricultural Machinery Show) and the 36th edition of Eurofruit (Professional Trade Fair for Fruit Industry Suppliers), which will be held until 3 October at the Fira de Lleida exhibition centre with the presence of 290 exhibitors and around fifty parallel activities.

In her speech, the minister emphasised that Catalonia “is a country of reference and prestige for its agri-food system, which facilitates territorial cohesion”, while at the same time she has made a commitment to the “green revolution”, to sustainable food production, to technological transformation and to promoting the role of women and young people in the sector. “We have to recover our pride in our country, with a more equitable and sustainable agricultural system,” he said.

Jordà, after signing the Fira de Lleida’s Book of Honour and before making the traditional visit to the exhibitors, spoke to the media and called on the Government to ensure that the Food Chain Law, the draft amendment that is currently being processed, protects producers and is not just “a law for show”. He called for a ban on selling at a loss because “a producer cannot sell below the production price” and “must be able to make a living”. Jordà called for “more budget” for farmers, livestock farmers and the productive sector, although she expressed her conviction that the new Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda will have “good budgets” if the Generalitat’s accounts for 2022 are successful.

The minister was accompanied at the opening ceremony of the Sant Miquel Fair by the mayor of Lleida, Miquel Pueyo; by the president of Lleida Provincial Council, Joan Talarn; by the president of the Lleida Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jaume Saltó, and by the director general of Fira de Lleida, Oriol Oró.

In his speech, Pueyo stated that the holding of the Sant Miquel Fair, the first on-site event of its kind in Catalonia, is a “hope” that recovers a European benchmark in the sector, “a generator of economy and confidence”. He also stressed that Lleida aspires to be the European capital of technological transformation in terms of agriculture.

The president of the Provincial Council, Joan Talarn, also supported the digitalisation of the primary sector, commenting that after the crisis, economic changes must be accelerated, changes to which a fair that is “a forum for debate on the transformation of the green, circular and digitalised economy” is contributing.

For his part, Jaume Saltó, President of the Chamber of Commerce, pointed out that Lleida “not only exports fruit, but also technology”. However, he regretted the relocation of companies from Lleida, a worrying issue and one on which he asked for the support of the Generalitat government.

In terms of health and safety, it should be remembered that Fira de Lleida has implemented an advanced Artificial Intelligence system which, by means of video cameras, monitors people entering and leaving the venue and automatically warns them in real time when they do not comply with the protocols of capacity, social distance, use of masks, etc.

The sectors present at the fair are precision agriculture, agricultural machinery, equipment and services for agriculture and livestock, local products and food, packaging, nurseries, plant protection, industrial machinery, frost and hail protection, auxiliary systems, irrigation, drones and automotive, among others.

The exhibition is open to the public from 9.30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The Technology Agora promoted by the Lleida Chamber of Commerce offers pilot projects with the use of 5G

The Technology Agora of the Lleida Chamber of Commerce and Industry today hosted the presentation of a robot project to eliminate weeds, thereby eradicating the use of pesticides and saving costs, according to Ricard Pardell, from the company Earth Rover, in the framework of the conference “Pilot projects identified with the use of 5G technology”, organised by the Area 5G de Ponent and held in Hall 4 of the 67th edition of the Fira Agrària de Sant Miquel (National Agricultural Machinery Fair) and the 36th edition of Eurofruit (Professional Fair of Fruit Industry Suppliers).

This project, which is being developed by a company from Sant Cugat del Vallès with the support of another English firm, consists of an autonomous, intelligent vehicle that weeds weeds with concentrated light and also records data on the plantations to help farmers increase production. Pardell explained that they want to accelerate the pilot tests of this device during 2022 and that one of the places chosen to do so will be in the experimental farm that IRTA has in Mollerussa and with the collaboration of the Chamber of Commerce.

The businessman explained that the effectiveness of this robot may be altered by the lack of 5G coverage, which is why he is committed to disseminating technological applications in the agricultural world. The Technology Agora of the Sant Miquel Fair, which will run until 2 October, has programmed more than twenty activities, grouped by thematic areas: 5G Technology; Digitalisation and water; Technology transfer; and Digital applications in the agricultural sector. All of them take place at the stand of the 5G Area of Ponent “Lleida ON”, located in Pavilion 4 of the fair, and have as protagonists the different agents involved in the innovation ecosystem of the province of Lleida.

The 5G Areas are spaces in the territory that integrate technology and business projects to create strategies and coverage to promote and attract technological industries, including in the agricultural and livestock sector, which is so important in Lleida’s counties. The characteristics of 5G technology imply a revolution in communications. Among other aspects, its high bandwidth, the capacity to support a very high density of devices (up to one million per m2), the reduction of latency, flexibility in the development and operation of networks, as well as improved energy efficiency, stand out.

The new 5G networks also represent a major innovation in technology and a disruptive innovation in service. 5G will offer a whole new set of mobility services that will generate a new paradigm, which will involve the emergence of disruptive services compared to 4G, provide functionalities hitherto unheard of in mobile communications, generate new communication models and, consequently, a new range of possible business models.

They will take place from 30 September to 3 October and will bring together 290 exhibitors and around fifty parallel activities.

The Sant Miquel Agricultural Fair and Eurofruit, shows that will open their doors next Thursday with 290 exhibitors and some fifty parallel activities, will kick off the autumn fair season and begin the process of normalising fair activity in Lleida, as “they will become the first major Catalan event to return to format on site since the start of the pandemic”, according to Miquel Pueyo, mayor of Lleida and chairman of the board of the Lleida Fair Foundation. The 67th edition of the Sant Miquel Agricultural Fair (National Exhibition of Agricultural Machinery) and the 36th edition of Eurofruit (Professional Fair of Fruit Industry Suppliers) will take place from 30 September to 3 October at the fair facilities in Lleida and will offer a wide and varied exhibition covering 54,000 m².

Pueyo, after pointing out that Sant Miquel and Eurofruit have become “the great economic event of the Lleida region”, said that one of the distinctive features of the agricultural event is “its vocation to innovate and act as a channel for disseminating new trends and advances in the agri-food sector, especially through the technical conferences and other parallel activities”. These conferences “respond to the concerns and interests of the sector and focus on current issues, such as the European strategy for the new CAP or climate change,” the mayor added.

The mayor highlighted some of the novelties of the fair, such as the new 5G Space, coordinated by the Lleida Chamber of Commerce, which will host presentations of projects in this field, start-up companies (newly created companies that market products or services through the intensive use of information and communication technologies), organisations and institutions that promote this innovative technology, etc.

The President of the Lleida Provincial Council, Joan Talarn, said that Sant Miquel and Eurofruit are the most important Catalan event in the agri-food sector and a showcase for Lleida’s economy, adding that the show responds to the Provincial Council’s approach of “achieving the economic transformation of the territory and committing to a green, circular and highly digitalised economy”. Talarn announced that the Lleida institution will present a new project at the fair, the web portal “Me encontrarás” (a meeting place for entrepreneurs, producers and consumers), as well as a video clip that aims to recognise entrepreneurs who have managed to move the economy forward despite the handicap of the pandemic.

For his part, Jaume Saltó, president of the Lleida Chamber of Commerce, clarified that the Sant Miquel Fair is a necessary platform to promote innovation and digital transformation in the agri-food sector, a platform where entrepreneurs and established companies present their innovations in the field of technology. “Lleida is a reference point in fruit and animal protein exports, but it also needs to become an exporter of technology related to the agri-food sector, and the Sant Miquel Fair is the best showcase for this whole technology sector,” he added.

Bernat Solé, delegate of the Government of Catalonia in Lleida, after stressing that “Lleida is a spearhead” in the recovery of fair normality thanks to the holding of the Sant Miquel Fair, said that this edition will become a reference in the fields of digitization and the search for systems of maximum efficiency.

In this regard, he announced that the event will host seven conferences on the annual technology transfer plan drawn up by the Government of Catalonia. The conferences will focus on: on-farm composting; climate change, biodiversity and irrigation; food misinformation (fake news); towards a circular bio-economy in Catalonia – BIT Congress 2022; the dilemma between energy sovereignty or food sovereignty; plant health (the role of ADVs in the new European scenario); and olives and nuts: aid from the new CAP and valorisation of natural resources.

The general manager of Fira de Lleida, Oriol Oró, recalled that, in order to guarantee the safety of visitors and exhibitors, the organisation has implemented an advanced Artificial Intelligence system which, using video cameras, monitors people entering and leaving the venue and automatically warns them in real time when the protocols of capacity, social distance, use of masks, etc. are not complied with.

In addition, various processes have been digitalised (visitor registration, obtaining tickets and online payment), security and cleaning teams have been reinforced, disinfection points have been created, air collection and ventilation systems have been improved, etc. The organisers estimate that the fairgrounds can simultaneously hold a maximum of 10,000 people.

On-site fairs, “irreplaceable”.
Oró has clarified that, according to the experience of trade fair organisers, the digitalisation of trade fairs can be a complement to the on-site part, but not a substitute for it, as the on-site meeting “means that, in a specific place and at a specific time, there is a congregation of people from different fields who generate all kinds of information and an interrelationship with customers and competitors that does not occur in the digital format”. The digital channel “has helped us to reach further than the in-person fair allows us (with streaming conferences, online trade missions, etc.), but today the latter is irreplaceable”, he concluded.

Another new feature of this edition is the expansion of the Automotive Area, which will have a surface area of 3,000 m2 and will host more than 300 vehicles, representing 90% of the brands marketed in Lleida.

The international nature of the fair will be well reflected in the presence of foreign exhibitors and in the virtual reverse mission of the agricultural sector with distributors and importers from 10 countries (Chile, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Peru, Dominican Republic, South Africa and Turkey).

The event has also scheduled almost 50 parallel activities, including technical seminars, conferences, presentations, drone demonstrations (in the field of precision agriculture), professional meetings and demonstrations of local products and foodstuffs.

The sectors present at the fair will include precision agriculture, agricultural machinery, equipment and services for agriculture and livestock, local products and food, packaging, nurseries, plant protection, industrial machinery, hail protection, auxiliary systems, irrigation, drones and automotive, among others.

It should be remembered that the fair is the setting for the Award for Technological Innovation and Safety in the Design of Agricultural Machinery and Agri-Food Industry Equipment, as well as the Agricultural Book Award and the Agricultural Technical Article Award.

Apart from its great interest for professionals in the countryside (farmers and livestock farmers), the double show offers many attractions for the general public, such as the sale of local products, the presence of spectacular agricultural equipment, drone exhibitions, the Automotive Fair or the catering offer, among others.

The fair will be open to the public from 9.30 am to 8 pm.

LleidaDrone will present, within the Area 5G de Ponent, the innovative project Crop Doc, an Artificial Intelligence application to detect fire blight in apple trees.

The largest drone for agricultural use, the DJI T6 Agras, will be one of the attractions of the next edition of Sant Miquel and Eurofruit. Among the various activities that the show will offer in the field of drones, there will be flying exhibitions of around fifty devices, including the DJI T6 Agras, a 252 × 221.2 × 72 cm drone (with arms and propellers deployed) designed to work efficiently in any conditions and terrain. This drone will come from LleidaDrone and the Lleida-based company specialising in these machines, Aerofor. Another of the novelties to be presented by LleidaDrone is the Crop Doc Terminal project, an advanced Artificial Intelligence application designed for Smart Agro.

The DJI T6 Agras is a dust and waterproof drone with a detection system capable of dodging obstacles that allows it to spray even on trees planted on steep slopes. It has a large payload capacity (it incorporates a 16-litre tank that sprays up to 6.5 metres wide). It is capable of spraying 10 hectares in one hour, 67% more than the previous model. Despite its large dimensions, its new modular design allows it to reduce its volume by up to 75% to facilitate transport. The body of the aircraft is made of carbon fibre, which makes it lighter and stronger. The remote control range is up to 3 km.

LleidaDrone will also be present at the 5G Area Ponent with the presentation, on Saturday at 11.15 am, of the Crop Doc Terminal project, an Artificial Intelligence application designed for Smart Agro, developed by the ICT Laboratories of the Lleida Science Park in collaboration with LleidaDrone. It is a system for detecting fire blight in apple trees (in the future the system will be developed to recognise other plant pests in different types of fruit trees). The application implements two hardware systems, a Google Coral TPU and an Nvidia Sonamu Jet, which allow the disease to be identified by taking a photograph of the affected tree and comparing it with more than 25,000 images of the plant in different states (diseased or not), which the device has in memory.

The device accelerates processing speed 100 times faster than a mobile phone and also has 5G communications to be able to transmit hundreds of photographs downloaded from the cloud at very high speed, although it can also operate in offline mode, to be able to work in areas with no connectivity. In the future, it is envisaged that a “federated” model will work, where different farmers using the device can automatically share their model in the cloud, so that they can all benefit from each other’s experience. If a farmer discovers an error in the detection of the disease by the device, he can correct it himself, and in this way the experience of this user will be useful for other farmers. This project has been a finalist in the 5G Challenge of the national operator Orange.

In addition to the flight of the DJI T6 Agras, LleidaDrone Arena, LleidaDrone’s indoor flight network, which will be located in Pavilion 4, will host tests and exhibitions of around fifty drones controlled by different pilots and collaborators of the organisation.

On Saturday from 12.00 LleidaDrone will also take part in the Lleida Orchard Day at the stand of the Paeria, in this case with the presentation of the Labrador Simulator project. On the other hand, the entity will exhibit videos with the latest advances related to the Dronecoria project and will make available to the public 4 computers for young people and children to play the content creation and dissemination project of the Huerta de Lleida “Simulador de labrador” (Farmer Simulator).

Finally, in the Corner space of Ponent Aerospace, the spinoff of LleidaDrone P.E.R.A. will be present with different contents and projects, such as those related to the Google scholarship students who this summer have made space visualisations on the Liquid Galaxy platform.

The LleidaDrone Association was founded in 2011 in the Science and Technology Park of Lleida and has developed more than 70 events in Lleida, in the rest of Spain and in several European countries, always with the philosophy of offering activities to disseminate projects and drone technology without profit.

Among days, presentations, conferences, drone exhibitions, professional meetings, demonstrations of local products and foodstuffs and other training and information activities

With topics such as sustainability, climate change, plant health, food sovereignty, financing, forestry resources, agricultural machinery, irrigation and precision agriculture

The Sant Miquel Agricultural Fair and the Eurofruit show will host more than 40 technical activities this year, including seminars, presentations, conferences, drone exhibitions in the framework of precision agriculture, professional meetings, demonstrations of local products and foodstuffs and other training and informative activities. The topics to be covered include sustainability, climate change, agricultural financing, plant health, food sovereignty, forestry resources, agricultural machinery, irrigation and precision agriculture, among others.

The conferences and presentations already confirmed will focus on very diverse content, such as composting on the farm itself; the problem of wildlife in fruit and extensive crops; the lines of financing of ENISA (Empresa Nacional de Innovación Sociedad Anónima); digitisation in high-value crops within the reach of the farmer; Climate change, biodiversity and irrigation; Food disinformation (the “fake news”); Towards a Circular Bioeconomy in Catalonia – BIT 2022 Congress; Plant health (the role of the ADVs in the new European scenario), or the dilemma between Energy sovereignty or food sovereignty.

Equally, the conferences on the Results of the Territorial Specialisation and Competitiveness Project are interesting: The Forest (the first resource of the green economy); Precision agricultural machinery; Irriga Control: intelligent solutions for the digitalisation of agricultural estates; The olive tree and nuts: aid from the new CAP and the maximum use of natural resources, or the Conference on the herbicide Glyphosate.

The show will also host professional meetings such as the meeting of the Council of Colleges of Commercial Agents of Catalonia, the assembly of members of the FECOC (Federation of Catalan Sheep and Goat Breeders’ Associations) or the meeting of the jury of the Award for Technological Innovation and Safety in the Design of Agricultural Machinery and Equipment for the Agri-food Industry.

To this should be added the various activities (exhibition, displays, presentations, games) organised by Lleidadrone and the Virtual Reverse Mission Agrotech 2021, which will see the participation of 10 countries (Chile, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Peru, Dominican Republic, South Africa and Turkey).

The 67^th edition of the Sant Miquel Agricultural Fair (National Agricultural Machinery Show) and the 36^th edition of Eurofruit (Professional Trade Fair for Fruit Industry Suppliers) will take place from 30 September to 3 October at the Fira de Lleida.

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Information provided by the exhibiting company.

Both fairs will be held from 30 September to 3 October and will be held in person.

The Sant Miquel Agricultural Fair and the Eurofruit show have already reached 88% occupancy of the total gross exhibition space (64,000 m2), with two months to go. The 67th edition of the Sant Miquel Agricultural Fair (National Agricultural Machinery Show) and the 36th edition of Eurofruit (Professional Trade Fair for Fruit Industry Suppliers) will be held from 30th September to 3rd October at the Fira de Lleida facilities.

The general manager of Fira de Lleida, Oriol Oró, believes that the rate of contracting is correct, considering the current circumstances, and he is confident of being able to hold “a good trade fair in person, provided, of course, that the conditions and health guidelines in force on those dates allow it”. Oró recalls that Sant Miquel and Eurofruit constitute an important platform for supporting the agricultural world, especially in these times of pandemic, and that Fira de Lleida “is making a great effort to guarantee the holding of an attractive, complete and safe fair”.

It is worth remembering that the event will have a pioneering Artificial Intelligence solution implemented by Fira de Lleida to ensure the health safety of exhibitors and visitors. This is a video camera system that will monitor people entering and leaving the fairgrounds and will automatically warn them in real time when the protocols of capacity, social distance, use of masks, etc. are not met, so that security personnel will be able to act to rectify the situation.

Sant Miquel and Eurofruit will showcase a wide-ranging exhibition focusing on agricultural machinery, precision agriculture, equipment and services for agriculture and livestock farming, local agri-food products, automotive, financial services and insurance.

The Sant Miquel Agricultural Fair and Eurofruit will host a large number of exhibitors from Spain and other European countries, according to Fira de Lleida’s forecasts, with a programme of parallel activities that will include technical seminars, conferences, presentations, drone demonstrations in the field of precision agriculture and professional meetings, among others.

The two trade fairs will also be the setting for the 50th edition of the Agricultural Book Prize, worth 3,000 euros, and the 6th edition of the Agricultural Technical Article Prize, worth 1,000 euros.

The nut sector will be present at the Sant Miquel Fair and the Eurofruit show with several exhibiting companies presenting machinery for the harvesting, processing, and post-processing of these products. Nuts and dried fruit have been gaining prominence in recent editions of the Lleida show thanks to the participation of equipment and nut marketing companies, as well as the organisation of conferences and presentations dedicated to these products.

This year’s edition will also be attended by firms such as Renatus Agro, a prestigious company specialising in all types of equipment (harvesting, processing, and post-processing) for almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios and other nuts. The firm from La Mancha specialises in pistachio machinery (with equipment for separating the twigs, shelling, cleaning, eliminating voids, calibrating, and drying pistachios).

Nuts, an alternative for the future
In recent years, the sharp increase in international demand has led Catalan farmers, especially in Lleida, to increase their nut production. Some of the factors that have led to a commitment to these crops is the extensive knowledge that farmers have, as well as the availability of thousands of hectares of irrigated land in the Segarra-Garrigues Canal sector, which provide great possibilities for starting up crops with higher economic yields than those of sweet fruit.

On the other hand, the traditional varieties of almond —the largueta and the marcona— are being replaced by other similar varieties which have advantages such as the fact that they are late flowering, which allows them to escape frost, or that they are self-fertile, which saves on fertilisation interventions, which can be complicated by the weather or the lack of fertilisers. In fact, nuts in general suffer less from bad weather.

It should be remembered that almond, walnut, and hazelnut cultivation is deeply rooted in Catalonia (the first two in the province of Lleida and the latter in the province of Tarragona) and that Spain is the third largest producer of almonds in the world and the fifth largest producer of hazelnuts.

Forecasts for the 2020-2021 season
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the almond crop forecast for the 2020-2021 season is 353,705 tonnes in shell, 4% more than the previous season, while the hazelnut forecast is 12,324 tonnes, 1.6% more than last season. The importance of organic crops has also been highlighted, where nuts represent 30% of the total organic surface area of permanent crops.

It should be remembered that due to the difficulties this sector is experiencing as a result of the Covid-19 health crisis (which has reduced international trade and caused a drop in consumption in catering establishments), the sector has various aid measures promoted by the central government, such as the financing of companies affected by the crisis.

The Ministry also encouraged fruit and vegetable producer organisations (POs) to maximise the use of EU funds. Although the level of integration in POs at sectoral level has been increasing in recent years to reach 50%, differences persist depending on the products. Thus, while 68% of almond production is integrated in POs, in other growing crops (pistachio and walnut), marketing through these figures does not reach 2% of production.

The Ministry also presented an analysis of the area planted, which indicated that almonds represent 21% of the total area declared for this type of crop, while pistachio accounts for 67% and walnut 36%, in an expansion favoured by growing European demand.

The Ministry also highlighted the importance of organic cultivation, where nuts represent 30% of the total organic surface area of permanent crops, with an annual growth of 9% and a current implantation of 26%. Organic production represents a great opportunity for this sector, due to less competition with other producing countries.