Integrated farming: how the impacts of external agents can be lessened to ensure the expected performances
When we read and hear the word "sustainability", we think most of the times about a somewhat brand-new word related to the Agriculture 4.0. Nevertheless, the term appears dated in 1987 in the Bruntland Report by the World Committee about Environment and Development, which tells us about "that development that meets the demands of the present without compromising the capacities of the future generations". That was nearly 30 years ago! So long but not long ago too.
Some of the conditioning factors of that development, to which nowadays still many are referring to, were already present at that time. Mainly one factor: the progressive increase of the population, related to life expectancy. The more people to feed, the higher demand of production of food. A huge challenge for Agriculture, which, by the way, it is closely watched over as far as environment policy is concerned.
The population explosion is to be expected, mainly, in Africa and Asian-Pacific areas, which normally evolve very slowly at economical and social levels. They lack a proper capacity of self-supply, mainly in terms of food variety, so the foreign manufacturers, specially from Europe and America, have joined in scene.
Precisely, in these two continents, more developed, has taken over an opinion trend in their communities, which aims at promoting what is known as "reasoned agriculture". An integrated production, between "conventional" and "biological" agriculture, which lessens the use of pesticides, fertilizers and liquid fertilizers and tries to reduce the water consumption to adjust it to the specific needs for every case. In this trend, it is unavoidable to have to highlight the role of the agricultural sprayers.
Notwithstanding, besides other considerations, the agricultural sprayers play an important role in this sense as they enable the application of phytosanitary products to control bad weeds, blights, diseases, etc.
There are agricultural sprayers of many sorts, depending on how the application is carried out and the product is carried: hand-operated, hydraulic, pneumatic, hydro-neumatic (air-blast sprayers or mistblowers), centrifugal, thermical, self-propelled, etc. Regardless of our choice, it is as well important the most accurate choice of the nozzles through which the product flows.
The "reasoned agriculture" regards a big number of agricultural practices. It analyzes the condition of soils to choose the most suitable methods of maintenance, chooses the proper varieties according to the weather conditions of the area and uses proper tools and devices which could preserve the natural resources, in special water ones.
Even farmers can draw on releasing blight predatory insects as a system of defense although the threshold - amount of blight - which every crop is able to bear must be well known in order to take the most convenient controlling measures.
The urgent demand of food which is approaching will take to the limit the world productive abilities. Unthinkable levels of production for nowadays standards would probably be reached. Since there are no forecasts of increase of arable land on the planet, it becomes vital the search for methods which, reducing the environmental impact, could give an answer to such levels of demands with better performances.
The farmers will no longer be able to afford to work counting on the chance of losses and important decreases of the harvests. The "controlled agriculture" will gain ground understood as a method of production which lessens the impacts of external agents which are uncontrollable and enable - except for extraordinary situations - the expected performances. It can be used in urban as well as rural soils, and includes from big professional greenhouses to vertical plots, different size exploitations, urban vegetable gardens and hydroponic crops.
A huge commitment has always been placed on the agricultural manufacturers to feed the population. Nowadays, besides, they are compelled to give a step forward to comply with the demand of sustainibility of the environment. To that purpose they count on the support of more and more advanced technology, which includes a large variety of agricultural sprayers. The "controlled agriculture" will keep on advancing, but the knowledge and the experience of the professionals will help the most to choose the methods to be used, those which could warrant the increase of productivity.
