Belarus Turns Into Country Of Risky Technologies – Charter’97 :: News from Belarus – Belarusian News – Belarus News – Republic of Belarus
What does the departure from the HTP startup, which helps farmers around the world, say?
One of the most popular Belarusian startups, which Alexander Lukashenko called “very necessary and popular”, left the HTP. OneSoil works very often in Belarus,
“Owl” understood why this is an important event for the prospects of the country’s agro-industrial complex.
How the OneSoil app monitors the health of fields and crops
To begin with, let’s take a quick look at what exactly they do at OneSoil. This is a Belarusian startup that describes an algorithm in 2017 Vyacheslav Mazai and geographer Vsevolod Genin.
The team developed OneSoil Scouting, a free mobile app that helps growers around the world monitor farms remotely, monitor field conditions, find and fix problem areas, take notes, and store data.
The mobile app can be synchronized with the OneSoil web app. As pickers, in addition to the supply monitoring version, in the web version, you can count the seedings and pay contributions. And also analyze vegetation statistics, effective temperature and screen control, visualize files from on-board computers.
How the application works is one example. A registered user selects his field on the map. Next, OneSoil Scouting collects satellite data, collects a vegetative index – indicators of plant growth and development, and shows the owner a map of fields with areas of different colors.
The color depends on the vegetation index. For example, a light brown color tells the field owner that there is no vegetation on the production site. This may look like before the appearance of the first sprouts of crops. Or some of its sections, where crops did not sprout in different allocated areas.
Bright green areas in the first weeks after sowing can be exposed to weeds, which tend to outpace crop plants in growth and development. And also that in these areas there is a risk of culture disturbance, therefore, it is necessary to use growth regulators.
In other words, the vegetation index informs the owner of the field not only about the state of the crop grown there, but also suggests possible problems – weeds, flooding, etc.
Areas of the field that require verification are fixed on the map using GPS markers so that they can be easily found on the spot.
An important point: you can survey the field remotely, saving fuel and time to identify problem areas. Departure to the place, the agronomist can make special notes, record observations in a special field card. The data obtained from the production in the field of machine operators are also entered there.
The collected information will help analyze the development of events throughout the season and plan for the development of events for the next year. In addition, the field card is convenient for crop rotation.
To sum it up, OneSoil apps help you save on field inspections by enabling remote analysis. Monitoring the collected information allows you to save the consumption of seeds, fertilizers and plant protection products. And, finally, to increase the yield of cultivated crops.
Why such technologies are important for the development of the Belarusian economy
One of the main reasons is the prevention of savings in the face of reduced funding. The times when the state invested several billion dollars a season in management are over. Today, these amounts are several times smaller, which makes cost optimization that brings benefits, and inevitable losses, especially valuable.
Another important factor is climate change. Belarus already refers to the observation of risky farming, the consequences of global warming, not only from discovering new horizons for Belarusian farmers, but also from discovering their risks.
Droughts, snowless winters, devastating rainstorms, new types of diseases and pests are just a few of the challenges that offer a new climate reality. And it will be increasingly difficult to solve these problems without technology. If possible at all.
Zhizhemsky 08:40
There is another aspect that indicates that the Belarusian startup has fallen into the general trend. According to the calculations of the UN with the Food and Industry Organization (FAO), in order to feed the whole world in 2050, it will be necessary to increase food production by 70%.
To do this, great strides must be made in developing the economy and scaling up environmental impacts. Big data (big data), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) play a key role in this process.
In 2019, one of the founders of OneSoil, Vyacheslav Mazai, published about this article. Here is a collection of quotes:
“Already now there are technologies that cause increased sustainability and sustainable growth in industrial production. If early farming decisions based on inaccurate forecasts and intuitions were obtained, then modern tools at the interface of technology and agriculture promise to change this situation.
Now agronomy is focused on “precision farming” – a management system that uses modern technologies in all areas of work.
Digitalization of agriculture – in words and in deeds
In 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food united with the National Academy of Sciences to develop and implement the Strategy for Adapting the Economy to Climate Growth. The document provides for an increase in the general culture of agriculture and agrotechnical modernization.
At the end of 2021, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Subbotin declared the importance of the most precise farming and, in particular, the high degree of development of agriculture:
— There are many advantages in this process: saving fuel during tillage, applying the required amount of fertilizer, selecting a crop for a particular area, and so on.
As we can see, in words and on paper, both the development of the current situation in the industry and its prospects are understood. But what is actually happening?
Even today, good funding and the vagaries of a changing climate lead to crop shortages. Last year, Vitebsk, Gomel and Mogilev regions sharply reduced the production of milk and meat. And these problems will come to the fore in the near future, so that in the same regions the plan for forage harvesting has not been fulfilled. Due to a crop failure in the country, a ban on exports for duty was introduced. Didn’t spoil the potatoes either…
The government has so far masked the poor harvest with impressive agricultural exports, but is in no hurry to reveal the secret of success: it’s all about the sharp rise in exported food prices. In addition, the possibility of achieving export records at the expense of the wallets of ordinary Belarusians is not ruled out.
The authorities cut the budget of the agro-industrial complex, but continue to hold on to the lagging behind and unprofitable farms to the last. In most cases, which occur under criticism in connection with the delay in labor discipline, the simple use of budgetary equipment, inefficient use of applications.
If we talk about the prospects for the development of precision agriculture, then perhaps the promise to feed people receded before the desire to intimidate him. It is symbolic that Deputy Prime Minister Subbotin’s statement was made against the backdrop of the first attacks by the security forces on top managers of IT companies. A month later, it became known about the departure from the country of OneSoil, which, by the way, are also working in the field of solving problems associated with global warming.
The big question is whether those who wish among the Belarusian IT people are advancing under the capture of their banner. Sometimes there are hopes for the Academy of Sciences, which today is focused on non-core tasks.