The International Trade Show for the Fruit and Vegetable Industry Fruit Attraction, is the meeting point for fruit and vegetable operators to create solid business relationships and open up new opportunities in new markets. The industry is facing major challenges that will compromise its ability to grow, develop and be competitive, such as the opportunities and future of biotechnology, its impact on the environment, industry, and society.

At this show, AMETIC brought together a number of experts at a roundtable discussion titled “Digitalization and Sustainability in Fruit and Vegetables”, to discuss and search for the best strategies for encouraging innovation, research, technology, and digitalization as the keys to future growth in the agriculture sector. GMV’s Secure e-Solutions Industry Sector Director Miguel Hormigo presented his point of view on the digital solutions that will add value to the entire agri-food chain and how we can meet the objectives of producing a lot and producing it well, quickly, and sustainably. “We need to leverage technologies that automate physical processes, improving quality and productivity and using tools that, virtually, help us in future predictions,” said Miguel Hormigo.

Agriculture 4.0 adapted to digitalization and sustainability

The increase in population, with the subsequent increase in demand for food, and the environmental impact are encouraging the development of Agriculture 4.0 to optimize agricultural practices. It is an evolution of precision agriculture that brings together digitalization and automation to increase productivity and profitability with the lowest possible environmental impact.

Agricultura 4.0 is an operative reality that increases the use of objective information obtained by sensors, weather stations or satellites each day on the crop management decision-making process. This is in addition to using digital platforms, which are increasingly common and necessary in managing the data collected from the environment. Meanwhile, the automation of partially or entirely autonomous machinery works quickly and reliably, helping workers focus on areas where manual labor is truly necessary, without safety risks and reducing the consumption of fuel and energy.