Regio Noord | Verkenning ontwikkeling "Lab op de Boerderij" (Lab-on-a-Farm)

Farmers traditionally distribute fertilizers and pesticides on their field in order to increase their crops yield and protects them from pests. This process requires expensive and often toxic chemicals that used inappropriately will leak to groundwater and contaminate the environment. Farmers are often trained professionals who know which chemicals they need, however they are lacking information about the current status of their soil and groundwater in order to assess the location and dosage for those chemicals (fertilizers). Therefore, we would like to evaluate the feasibility of renewing our Lab-op-Locatie prototype (VIA-project number VI17IN052) for usage by farmers to test their soil and groundwater for fertilizers and pesticides contamination. This target market would require a renewal of our technology and adjustments to be performed in order to satisfy farmers needs.....In this project we want to carry out feasibility research for the renewal of our Lab-op-Locatie (used for beer brewing) prototype into a Lab-on a farm, which delivers information about current condition of soil for farming, thus facilitates optimal fertilizers and pesticides usage by farmers. This product enables farmers to work on the optimization of fertilizers and pesticides dosages used on the farms.....This product contributes to the Topsector Agri & Food; the product facilitates rational usage of chemicals (fertilizers and pesticides) in the process of growing food. (programmalijn 8.2 klimaatneutrale productiesystemen) This action will not only reduce the fertilizers usage but as well positively contribute to the quality of food by reducing a leakage of excess of chemicals to our environment.