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It has not been an easy year for Spanish agriculture , and particularly for Andalusian agriculture . This autonomous community , traditionally fundamental to Spanish agriculture , with a much higher value of agricultural production than that of other communities , is experiencing its fourth driest season in 25 years, and this year irrigated farms had 70 percent less water for irrigation .
Energy and inputs needed for agriculture, for example, have seen an unusual increase following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has driven up production costs. These extraordinary circumstances are in addition to the usual difficulties in the industry, such as adverse weather conditions, plant pests and diseases, and the number of daily activities involved in running a farm.
In short, the Spanish campaign faces many challenges.
Fortunately, progress and new technologies can help: Agriculture 4.0 can make a difference, both in terms of greater control of costs and resource utilization, and in terms of challenge preparedness, profitability and competitiveness.
He is convinced of this. Javier García-Liñán Fragero, founder of Agrónomus . His family has been dedicated to the countryside for several generations, and with his company Javier helps many farmers, especially in Andalusia, to digitize and modernize the management of their farms. He has been using our free comprehensive farm property management application for a few months now and is finding the results interesting. Here's what he told us.
I am from Córdoba, Andalusia, and I am 41 years old. My family has been involved in agriculture for several generations. I studied agricultural engineering at the University of Córdoba. I started my career path in civil works, but after about eight years I decided to redirect my career path toward agriculture. So I earned a master's degree in agribusiness management from the Business School of the Instituto Internacional San Telmo in Seville and worked for a couple of years in my family's farms. I also did an MBA focused on entrepreneurship and startups: my goal was to try to combine my training as an agricultural engineer with what I had learned working in construction, because that is a much more technologically advanced sector,
Exactly. Agrónomus offers business consulting and management. What we do is full outsourced business management and management consulting, but we also work to improve farms, digitize their systems, establish working protocols, and generally modernize farm management.
January 2019.
We work mainly in Andalusia, although we have also had projects in other autonomous communities. I think our main strength is our innovative nature, the ability we have to modernize and establish new procedures, both in cost control management and in agronomic management itself. In agriculture there are very different stages in levels of professionalization, but professionalizing agricultural management is essential. Many farms have highly skilled technicians and are very well managed; but others are still far from what the industry requires today, and certainly this causes them to lose profitability ratios that they could achieve with better farm management.
Yes very much. Let's take a look at this year, for example. It's particularly complicated because we have very high production costs and also a significant restriction on water use, because of the drought, so we have to manage and control very well what is done with products and raw materials. Fertilizer costs have tripled and farms have only 30 percent of the normal irrigation supply.
Yes. You have to measure to the millimeter everything you do and have the systems in place to coordinate the different teams. It is not easy, because in the field you are working in constant motion, relocated, so the 'only way to be able to carry the office and all the necessary data with you at all times is through digital agriculture. With digital farming we have everything on our cell phones: costs, storage, water consumption, information from sensors, moisture probes and more.
The drought we are experiencing affects everything, without a doubt. Last winter was very dry, no rain until the end of February, and in many places cereals were on the verge of disappearing. Many hectares that had been planned for a number of crops, such as chickpeas, quinoa and all the early spring crops, were blocked from planting because it was materially impossible at that date. There were also a number of crops for which the ground was already prepared, but because the rain was still not coming, the planning had to be radically changed. These kinds of incidents affect us on a daily basis.
Indeed, consider, for example, the permanent crops of arid areas such as olive groves. The olive grove has been suffering for several years now from the alteration of the usual cycles of the Mediterranean climate, especially the autumn rains that are essential for oil formation. There are many ups and downs in production and difficulties in the profitability of this type of planting. On the other hand, until now this kind of incidence has not affected irrigated crops so much. But we have reached a point where drought has greatly reduced Spain's water reserves, or rather some basins. Some are better, but in Andalusia we have restrictions that make many crops, such as citrus or almonds, that need a lot of irrigation, not viable.
The management of water reserves depends directly on the central government, and unfortunately no new infrastructure is being built to increase storage capacity or to redistribute water between surplus and deficit basins.
Previously, the field notebook was kept in analog format, while with the new system all transactions are automatically recorded in a digital system. That is, through a mechanism similar to electronic banking, all transactions, movements and purchases of plant protection products are recorded in a digital system. This means that products have absolute traceability, from the moment they leave the producer or distributor until they reach the farmer.
I believe that every farmer should strive to get the most out of his or her farm, and the best way to do this is to place his or her business in the hands of professionals in the field. The technical requirements, labor requirements, tax requirements, etc. are similar to any other business, and to get the best results you need to have a trained and dedicated team.
In my opinion xFarm is the most comprehensive platform currently available on the market . It has a very strong integrative focus and allows you to work with different manufacturers, brands of probes, tractors, telemetry, etc. When the first digital farm equipment started to be implemented, each manufacturer tried to impose its own system and a lot of confusion was generated. For example, if three different agroclimatic stations are installed, each works with its own data and application. Management or cost control systems are normally done with another program, and the same goes for phytosanitary treatments, inventory management, and so on, each thing normally works through a different program.
However, xFarm allows management of all moisture probe data, irrigation control, storage maintenance, treatment management, and even integration of equipment from different manufacturers, which is very important in my case. I work with several companies as an external manager, and from the xFarm application I can give my clients access to all their farm data. In addition, each user can have access to the data that corresponds to their expertise.
Yes, of course. It can cover almost all aspects of the day-to-day management of a farm and even expand or incorporate modules as needed. The company has just landed in Spain, but it shows that there is a lot of work behind it since its beginnings in Italy.
Well, I think we stand out for the quality and sustainability of our agriculture. We have a great integration of environmental values, we carry out our activity in a very rich natural environment, and we are able to produce food of the highest quality.
Yes, and they are growing every day. Organic farming is also a way in which some places are becoming more competitive, especially the more complicated ones like mountain olive groves.
Yes, I am an optimist. There are farmers who think this sector is not profitable, but the big investment funds have their eyes on Spain, and this shows that there is potential for profitability in the Spanish countryside. But we have to change the way we work, we have to digitize, professionalize and be more and more competitive. In today's globalized agriculture, being competitive is key; Otherwise, having profitable farms is impossible.
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