HORTIMED - Towards circular horticulture: closing the loop on Mediterranean greenhouses

Irrigation demands in the Mediterranean region are projected to increase between 4 and 18% by the end of the century due to climate change alone; while population growth and increased demand, may escalate these numbers to 22-74%. Food products, crop and fish yields are projected to decline in many Mediterranean areas due to climatic and other stress factors. Urgent need for technological updating of greenhouse industry to (i) face the increasing competition arising from globalisation and (ii) minimize the environmental impacts (e.g. discharge of nutrients and growing eutrophication trends, intensive water use, excessive pesticide use…). Optimal greenhouse management is required to ensure unrestricted growth at a yield close to the maximum potential, while minimizing unsustainable exploitation of resources, especially energy, soil & water.

The core of HortiMED will be a user-friendly and flexible DSS capable of delivering: (1) Expert advisory services to help farmers in intensive knowledge tasks where climatic, crop and nutrient variables decisively influence crop growth and productivity (i.e. integrated pest management, precise water and fertilisers’ needs). (2) Efficient and cost-effective partial or full automation of greenhouse systems. HortiMED DSS will handle a wide range of heterogeneous data, and will apply Artificial Intelligence techniques to continuously learn from historical databases to forecast production yields and expected greenhouse conditions, allowing developing enhanced adaptive smart algorithms for climate, irrigation and nutrient control and automation. HortiMED technologies will be validated in low, medium and high technology greenhouses from Egypt, Algeria and Spain to demonstrate their economic feasibility and environmental sustainability. HortiMED will equip farmers with innovative & cost-effective tools for resource efficient production of high quality food products, contributing to the rational management of water and to the development of sustainable farming systems, and helping Mediterranean countries in the implementation of Agenda 2030 by contributing to several SDGs, like increasing the proportion of agricultural area under productive & sustainable agriculture (SDG2) or fighting eutrophication trends (SDG6).

INNOVATIONS DEVELOPED ENABLING SUSTAINABLE AND EFFICIENT AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SYSTEMS Automatic control system for the management of aquaponics and hydroponics AI-based software platform for smart monitoring of greenhouses IMTA aquaponics for water and nutrient efficient fish and crop production Hybrid modelling for smart greenhouse control INCREASED COMPETITIVENESS OF MEDITERRANEAN FARMERS Reduction of production costs by 5% thanks to improved WUE, NUE and EUE 200 agricultural stakeholders trained in resource efficient practices to integrate Resource Efficiency & Circular Economy principles into their businesses IMPROVED RESOURCE EFFICIENCY AND INCREASED CIRCULARITY Water Use Efficiency-WUE (m3/m2/kg) improved by 15% Nutrient Use Efficiency-NUE (kg of fertilizer/m2/kg) improved by 10% Energy Use Efficiency-EUE (Kwh/m2/kg) improved by 10% Reduction of chemical pesticides use by 5% Feed Conversion Ratio improved by 10% in IMTA system Net aquatic species biomass production in IMTA system increased by 15% REDUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS Reduced pollution from nitrate and phosphorus leaching thanks to precise fertiliser applications Minimized greenhouse gas emissions thanks to optimized fertiliser applications and minimised energy use Reduction of chemical pesticides residues in food, soil & water