Avoid the emission of 126,000 tons of greenhouse gases (CO2) into the atmosphere each year, achieve an estimated saving of 16.5 million euros only in the dry land of Burgos each cereal campaign and comply with the environmental requirements required to qualify for the all the aid of the new Community Agrarian Policy (CAP) as of 2023. These are the challenges posed by the pioneering research project developed three years ago by a group of farmers from the Bureba Ebro Cooperative, who have placed 600 hectares cultivation at the disposal of the Burgos technology company aGrae, born within the UBU, to experiment with all its consequences the benefits of variable fertilization and the limitation of an indiscriminate fertilizer that is saturating the fields and polluting soils, rivers and aquifers .
The experiment, which the UBU and the Instituto Tecnológico Agrario de Castilla y León (Itacyl) joined last year, began in the 2018-2019 campaign in an area of 60 hectares spread over the regions of Belorado, Valle de Tobalina and Miranda de Ebro and occupied by different types of crops.
That soil was mapped and thoroughly analyzed by aGrae agronomist engineers to determine its quality and nutrient levels. For this, all the plots were surveyed with a sensor specialized in measuring the apparent electrical conductivity, data related to the texture of each soil. Basically, the more clayey ones retain more nutrients than the sandy ones.
From the data obtained by the sensors and analyzed in the laboratory, variable fertilization prescriptions have been made on demand for each plot, each farmer and according to the behavior of the climate in each campaign.
“It’s simple,” explains engineer Jorge Miñón, “with the data obtained we give each plot the fertilizer it needs, combining technology and a lot of agronomy.” In addition to their land, the seven farmers participating in this experience have had to invest in technologically adapting their machinery (GPS, data processing, etc.), so that the soil analytics can accurately accompany the operation of their fertilizers in each location of the land.
Three years later, the hectares that are paid according to the real needs of the soil have been multiplied by ten and the idea is that the experience is progressively extended to, at least, the more than 100,000 that are cultivated with cereal in the province each campaign, although the experiment began with cereal, sunflower and poppy and continues with legumes, soybeans, etc.
The participants assure that they have managed to reduce between 20% and 30% the average volume of fertilizer used, which means reducing a bill that can reach 300-400 euros per hectare and campaign. The savings achieved are between 50 and up to 100 euros per hectare, “keeping production and yields unchanged to date.”
«The project seeks to optimize the use of fertilizers, reducing it where they are not needed and increasing them where they are, discarding the deeply rooted idea among farmers of fertilizing bad areas more to equalize them with good ones. It is a project that has required several campaigns, because after 3 years you see a continuity in the nutrients of the soil ».
Through annual surveys of 20-30 centimeters depth, the habitual abuse in the application of some nutrients such as phosphorus, a mineral with very limited reserves in Europe, or nitrogen has been verified.
The research is carried out under the protection of the Bureba Ebro Cooperative, which brings together 200 producers and more than 20,000 hectares of crops in the province. The company, which has a compound fertilizer manufacturing plant in Miranda, is the one that supplies fertilizers on demand to farmers, according to the tested needs of each soil and each crop using precision agriculture techniques.
Specifically, two types of fertilizers are produced for the Belorado area and for the Tobalina Valley area, respectively, compounds that are used both at the time of sowing (in the background) and for one or two coverts during germination.
Europe. What is being done in the lands of Belorado, Miranda and Tobalina anticipates the environmental requirements of the CAP in the period 2021-2027. “The more efficient the farmer is in the use of fertilizers, the less carbon footprint is generated, the less greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere, between 8% and 26% less,” says the head of Agrae, Jorge My non.
The PAC will impose eco-schemes, contracts signed by the farmer to, for example, reduce the use of fertilizers by up to 20% in a period of 3-4 years and which will be effective in the declarations from 2023. The eco-schemes will condition the full collection of aid from the European Union.
“The true farmer does not pollute, he maintains the environment and, unlike what is usually denounced, the new CAP will value that true farmer”, although – they qualify – the same environmental criteria will have to be demanded of those countries from which Europe buys food.
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