The document discusses the challenges and opportunities for small smart farms, focusing on technological and economic support systems for small family-owned farms in food production and land management. It outlines the evolution from traditional farming to smart agriculture, emphasizing the importance of sustainability, precision farming, and the integration of modern technologies in agricultural practices. Additionally, it highlights the need for multi-actor cooperation and innovation to enhance competitiveness and resilience in the agricultural sector.

1. Technological & Economic Challenges
Small Smart Farm: support systems for small
holdings and family farms in food production and land care
ERIAFF Conference
SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS
Multi-actor co-operation to foster new competitiveness for Europe
Seinäjoki, Finland, June 10-12

2. SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE – Firenze (Italy)
1765 Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo di Lorena
Shooting lodge inside Cascine Park
Architects Gaspare Maria Paoletti, and Giuseppe Manetti (1785)
Marco Vieri
PhD, Full professor on Agricultural and Forestry Biosystem Engineering, Agronomist
President of the Degree Course on Viticuture and Oenology
GESAAF – dept. Agricultural, Food Production and Forest Management
University of Florence
Piazzale delle Cascine 15
50144 Firenze (Italy)
tel +39 055 328 8320
fax +39 055 331794
mobile +39 3204324455
email: marco.vieri@unifi.it
web: www.gesaaf.unifi.it
skype: marco.vieri1956

3. outline
location
 mission
 small holder family farms
 from green revolution to smart farming
 regional platforms opportunity
 focus points

5. VINEYARD
S
Points of Interest in Rural Tuscany
OLIVE OIL FARMS
Mountain resources, crops and livestock
Rurality, culture, art ….. cereals, vegetables, tree nurseries….

6. outline
 location
mission
 small holder family farms
 from green revolution to smart farming
 regional platforms opportunity

7. From 1925 - Istituto di Meccanica Agraria
tool development, farming engines and machinery
Agriculture and Rural Engineering
farm yard organization, safety, ergonomy
Calendar of work. Logistics
2000 - Precision farming
VRT
ITC
Telemetria
webGIS
Fleet control
Robot
OU Biosystem Engineering
UNIFI

8. Researches carried out on
Mediterranean hill tree crops over
a decade

9. MARTE Plus (Sea, Rurality e Land: enhance
inclusive strategic potentiality) sub project C
“Dissemination of good practices aimed at adjusting
production systems and optimizing supply chains in
relation to climate change in agriculture”
www.martepiumeccanizzazione.it.

10. MARS+ mechanization - more than 20 technical meetings
in 10 districts on the Nord west coast of the
Tyrrhenian Sea

11. 11
Scenery of current conservative oliviculture:

12. Improved safety and quality during farm activities

13. Social sustainability:
workers safety
...risks for
workers…!!
No more
step
ladders..!!!

14. Environmental sustainability:
management of residues from crop growing
Trinciatura
Practice of burning: expensive, no carbonsink, dangerous

15. Environmental sustainability:
Crops residues energy use
Advantages of rotobaler:
 Less qualitative decay
 Easy to manage

16. To promote the rediscovery of resources, recycling and durable use of natural
resources based on traditional smallholder farming practices:

17. BAT best applicable practices in spraying chemicals
Baldi F., Cioni A., Vieri M.(1992).
Periodical control test for sprayers.
AgEng'92 Uppsala -Sweden June 1-4,1992- AgEng International Conference.Paper N°
9205 112.
Annual use of
pesticide in Italy
142 kt – 1,5 G€
WASTE 30-70%

18. Dosasystem Project- 1997
2° Internazional Congress on
PRECISION FARMING
Warwick – UK
Variable Concentration
and PPP type

20. Innovative proximal perception systems
Innovative Ultrasonic Sensors
New generation LIDAR

21. Process data over DTM on biosphere parameters
• SITE-SPECIFIC soil properties, superficial
water behaviour, microclimate, nutrients
content and activity, crop status, diseases
• 3D prescription maps for machinery

22. Farm centre
Stage 1 (for n°Times)
Pesticide mixture preparation
Stage 2
transport
Stage 3
distribution
Stage 4
Tank refill
Areas to be treated
Spillage risk
Risk of error in
mixture preparation
Contamination
risk for workers
Risk of
incorrect
distribution
TELEMETRY , FLEET CONTROL , DDS in management
Winery Mazzei Fonterutoli Siena

23. Traceability and management
(colors indicate degree of chemical risk after treatment)

24. Farm machinery dashboard with on time emission and
consumption indexes
compared with conventional practices
A communicative
tachimeter to highlight
sustainability indicators:
ROS, WFP, CFP, LCA, …
Esternality

25. outline
 location
 mission
small holder family farms
 from green revolution to smart farming
 regional platforms opportunity
 focus points

26. Helpful
to achieve the objective
Harmful
to achieve the objective
InternalOrigin
…..
Strengths Weaknesses
→ resilience
→ land care
→ typical product
→ renewed interest of young
generation
→ ……
→ very small scale
1 MHa 1Mfarms olive oil farms
1 700 kHa on 700 kfarms winery
→ poor knowhow: WASTE of …!!!
→ conservatively closed
→ old age (average 69 years old)
→ poor financial power
→ ……
ExternalOrigin
…..
Opportunities Threats
→ natural smart know-how of the
new generation
→ citizen need of «urban farms»
→ to ways inclusion process
→ territorial integration SHFF, pilot
farms, SME, RES, schools
→ EU pushing !!!!
→ ….
→ orographic and structural
difficulties
→ lack on a specific small scale farm
mechanization
→ innovation divide
→ research sectors division &
simplification of the lateral
sectors
Roles and problems of Small holder Family Farms

27. 27
Scenery of conservative current viticulture:

28. Environmental sustainability protecting the land.
Farm as GUARDIAN of homeland safety

29. urban farms, inclusive structures and activities
to experience rural and natural environments,
products, …..

30. <- 4000 a.C.
1900 ->
1950 ->
America
Asia
Europe
2000 - 2010

31. Kate Raworth, et al., A Safe and Just
Space for Humanity Oxfam Discussion
Paper, February 2012
Analysis of those submissions reveals 11 social priorities,
which can be
grouped into three clusters, focused on enabling people to
be:
 Well: through food security, adequate income,
improved water and sanitation, and
 health care;
 Productive: through education, decent work, modern
energy services, and resilience
 to shocks;
 Empowered: through gender equality, social equity,
and having political voice.
Researchers found farmers using up to three times the
required amount of nitrogen fertilizer, bringing no
increase in their harvests, but resulting in 20 to 50 % of
the nitrogen applied leaking into the air and polluting the
groundwater.
Ju et al (2009) ‘Reducing environmental risk by improving N management in intensive Chinese agricultural
systems’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol 106 No. 9.
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/9/3041.full.pdf+html

32. outline
 location
 mission
 small holder family farms
from green revolution to smart farming
 regional platforms opportunity
 focus points

33. From GREEN REVOLUTION
to SMART AGRICULTURE
food security after World War 2 … the
important of group activities in rural
communities: 1-haymaking, 2-reaping, 3-
grape harvest, 4-olive picking

34. Better yield and quality … but
- Pressure on resources &
- Disruptive social cost
M. Vanacht The Businness of Precision Agriculture.
USDA 2001
The “Horsepower” model
 Mechanization
 Irrigation
 Chemicals
 Improved seeds

35. 35
the organization of a sustainable process requires
rationalization and assessment of each operating
phase according to the global process
Pest control
management
Epigean
sphere
management
Hypogean
sphere
management
Product
management

36. 36
The “Brainpower” model
 Integrated management
of
 pests,
 water and
 fertility
 Robotization of Field
tasks
 Spatial & Data based
Decision Making
 Improved genetics
M. Vanacht The Businness of Precsion Agriculture. USDA 2001

37. Last but not least
We can not address the issue of the VRT, without considering the production process as an
integrated engineering of sector, in a broader context of productive enterprise
architecture, enterprise networks, services.
products
constraints
resources
Instrumental
Territorial
HumanEnvironmental
Structural
Foods
Energy
presidioHedonic products
Service
Restrictions
DIRECT and
INDIRECT
Process
efficiency
Ethics..
Traceability certified
Sustainability
Safety
precision farming
viticulture raisonné
viticulture durable e
sustainable agriculture

38. …(Georgofili 2003 pg 258)… The development of
operational tools is now addressed to the information-
technology and capitalization of that knowledge and skills
that with simpler tools were part of rural autharchic – so
sustainable - culture.
… the knowledge of the different characteristics in the
different plots of climatic and agronomic factors
implemented with careful daily observation skills and a
historicity of events transmitted orally generation by
generation , was a business model that today we want to
recover, through modern technologies … paesant not in
few acre but in hundreds hectare
The farm production system needs to rediscover, design and
manage a technical-technological system truly compatible with
all production, environmental and territorial factors.

39. Precision Farming a huge universe of
technologies and techniques for:
 FOOD SECURITY (where, how much, how to manage it, how to increase it, how to
make it profitable [i.e. auto-steer= + 10%];
 WATER AVAILABILITY “rates of water extraction for irrigation are exceeding rates of
many places”;
 SOIL QUALITY “soil quality is a critical factor globally” [i.e. erosion, salinization];
 LAND AVAILABILITY “the global crop land availabiility is in decline”;
 PESTICIDE/ HERBICIDE WASTE AND RESISTANCE “growing number of cases of herbicide
resistance” but more increasing technologies to detect disease [i.e. the scab
disease];
 ENERGY COST AND AVAILABILITY “energy demand …. could be double between now and
2050”
 PA increases yield by 16% reduces fertilizer input -5%, herbicide – 65%, fuel – 27%
Jensen et al 2012;
 ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: “many of the current approaches will continue to
degrade the environment and compromise the world’capacity to produce food in
the future”
 TRASFORMING DATA INTO INFORMATION

41. ancillary services for the Small Holder Farms
Family Farm «Altura» Giglio Isle 28_07_12
UO Biosystem Engineering
UNIFI

42. WEB – GIS is the intelligent system – the core of the new approach
it permits simultaneous evaluation of "historical" and technical datato
examine all information from anywhere

43. Management,
Monitoring,
Traceability
COMPANY
KNOW HOW
WEB-GIS
VRA
TELE
METRY
«Competitiveness & Sustainability»

44. We must use the immensely
valuable communication and
networks THAT THE NEW
GENERATION CAN ALREADY
MANAGE.
We must cultivate our young
people ... they will teach us how
to…

45. outline
 location
 mission
 small holder family farms
 from green revolution to smart farming
regional platforms opportunity
focus points

46. regional platforms opportunity
Satellite
images
Aerial images
Historical data
Local / Field data
CROPSTAR Core Platform
Production
Forecast
Crop
Classification
MONITORED
FIELD
Production
Optimization
Crops
diagnosis
Agronomic models
Procedure
optimization
Crops monitoring
GIS
Services
Water
monitoring
Precision Farming comprises a huge universe of
techniques, technologies and related competencies .
In general, but more in the Small Family Farms System,
is it not profitable the to use one single application.
Thaese are interdependent as the biological and
managerial system before described.

47. …. a leading a multi actor consortium
AgriSmaRT includes organization of many types (Research Centers,
SMEs, Farmers and others) gathering multiple competences,
spanning farmers, farm machinery and mechanization, earth
observation using space, airborne and UAV assets, Geographical
Information Systems, model design and validation and many others.
 The non-profit Association ToscanaSpazio with regional SMEs is facilitating this process,
as the application of space technologies to agriculture has been recently identified
among one of the smart specialization clusters of the Tuscany Region.
 University and Research Centres support research, instruction and training, participating
in the feedback process.
 Pilot Farms give evaluation of innovation in testbeds

48. outline
 location
 mission
 small holder family farms
 from green revolution to smart farming
 regional platforms opportunity
focus points

49. Closing the innovation divide via Smart Small Family Farms
 Dissemination participative events (such as Mars+)
• Takes time: pneumatic wheel case; more than 10 years to profitably
diffuse their use in agriculture
• Takes tuning time between providers and farmers
 Evaluation test beds in the virtuous pilot farms system
 Regional technological platforms between Small Family
Farms, Pilot Farms, SMEs, Services, RES, …..
 Role of Smart technologies on Instruction and lifelong
learning.
 The WEB and the Young together in the field .
 ……….. and much more….
 !!! → Horizon 2020 Call SFS-18-2015 – small farm but global markets: the role
of small and family farms in food and nutrition security.

50. the crew
UO Biosystem engineering
UNIFI