An important milestone has just been reached! The FARMEX project has successfully passed its acceptance review and has been approved by the European Space Agency (ESA). The second pilot year, 2024-2025, is now officially underway.
But wait, do you know what “FARMEX powered by Farmstar“, is all about?
FARMEX is a project led by TerraNIS, funded by the European Space Agency, in partnership with Airbus Defence & Space and the company Artal. This ambitious initiative aims to adapt Farmstar – a flagship Airbus service deployed in France for 25 years to optimize nitrogen fertilization – to the contexts and agricultural practices of several European countries. The goal is exclusive export commercialization by TerraNIS at the end of the project.
How does Airbus make a difference in FARMEX?
Farmstar, the result of a collaboration between Airbus, Arvalis Institut du végétal, and Terres Inovia, leverages Airbus’s space expertise and cutting-edge satellites, as well as sophisticated algorithms designed to meet the ever-growing technological demands of the agricultural sector.
This year, the service will reach the milestone of 12 million hectares covered across France. It is supported by a multidisciplinary team, combining agronomic engineers, experts, and PhDs specializing in remote sensing applied to the biosphere and ecology, backed by a responsive and highly skilled customer support team.
With FARMEX, TerraNIS and Airbus extend a collaboration spanning over 10 years, combining their expertise in space imaging and agronomy. Airbus also contributes by leveraging algorithmic frameworks and technological solutions that ensure the service’s reliability and accuracy, even in diverse soil and climatic contexts
An Ambitious European Rollout
Following a first pilot year in Romania and Poland focusing on rapeseed cultivation, a new pilot campaign for rapeseed and cereals is now underway. This phase expands to Greece, involving numerous stakeholders: seed companies, large agricultural operations, technical institutes, and geo-information service providers. These tests will gather extensive technical and operational feedback, further solidifying FARMEX as a robust service tailored to different European environments.
The objective of the FARMEX 1st FarmField Campaign 2023/2024 was to test the Farmex tool on rapeseed and gather user feedback to incorporate improvements into the second version of the service.
The second pilot year of the Farmex project is currently underway, This year will able to confirm the test with the 1st year on rapeseed and to test the service on wheat and barley this time, as well as in new countries
Stay tuned for the follow-up of the project and the upcoming commercialization in 2026!
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