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NetBeat, a smart irrigation system

Drip irrigation was used by ancient civilizations when they buried clay pots filled with water which would gradually infiltrate the soil, but it was not until 1965 that the modern technology of this irrigation was invented in Israel by Simcha Blass, a water engineer, who designed a tube that worked as a dropper and supplied the liquid. That was when Netafim, an irrigation company that has been improving the system over the years from the heart of the desert of Neguev, was created.

Each decade brought new developments that reached farmers around the world until they arrived in Mexico, where producers from Baja California, Queretaro, Guanajuato, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Durango currently use drip irrigation in their tomato, corn, citrus, vegetables, avocado, grapes, berries, and tobacco crops, among others.

"The average cost per hectare varies depending on the type of crop and soil, but its estimated average cost stands at $ 2,500 to $ 6,000," stated Niv Dardik, the commercial manager of Netafim for Latin America.

He recognizes it wasn't easy for farmers to pay that cost, and said that this was the reason that they had created programs to help them, which included financing. In other cases, producers are unaware of this technology, whose motto is "to produce more, with less".

Netafim executives said that, in order to be successful, they even had to associate with the competition, as well as with academic institutes, and governments.

Netafim has become the most important irrigation company in the world. It has 17 plants in different countries, 29 subsidiary companies, generates more than one billion dollars a year in sales, and its drip irrigation system has reached 110 countries.

An association with Mexico
Mexican company, Mexichem, a global leader in plastic pipes and one of the world's largest petrochemical companies, announced the acquisition of an 80 percent stake in Netafim last February.

"The great advantage of this purchase is that Mexichem manufactures PVC pipes, and 30 percent of the pipes we install in any irrigation system are made out of that material. We used to have to buy this component from third parties, now it will be made by part of the group. We trust in the quality of Mexichem's products, and there are good sales expectations," Dardik stated.

Netafim is currently working on NetBeat, the first digital agriculture solution that allows automatic irrigation. Some call it smart irrigation. Combining everything in a closed circuit platform allows producers to monitor, analyze, and control their irrigation remotely. The software allows them to manage their activities from their smartphones, adapting to different budgets and needs.

The system consists of sensors that are placed on the ground and that measure the soil's relative humidity and temperature. Others sensors are placed on the plant, leaf or stem. This information, combined with external information on climate and satellite photographs, is sent to a system in the cloud that analyzes when and how much the plant needs to be irrigated and that automatically opens the valves in the fields. Each type of crop has its own model, depending on its conditions and needs.

Source: elfinanciero.com.mx

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