The European Irrigation Association (EIA) organized on June 30, 2022  a virtual Summer Irrigation Forum.

This time we learnt more about two subjects:

• The presentation of Sat-Irrig tool, an Irrigation scheduling tool based on satellite images,
• The concept of agri-voltaism, the simultaneous production of crops and electricity.

During 2 hours sessions, we attended very interesting presentations whose main themes were adaptation to climate change and innovation.

Moshi Berenstein, EIA President started by an introduction about General EU Economy update : “We were very happy to exchange with 57 participants from all over Europe. This responsiveness and the diversification of the attendants motivate us and demonstrate the importance of the role that Irrigation can play in solving one of the most urgent issues in Europe today. Today’s EU outlook is set for lower growth and higher inflation especially this yearThe context of high inflation, food prices and falling purchasing power heavily influencing also our sector. At the same time, we see an increased demand for irrigation. Growing demand for food, heat waves rural and urban, increase scarcity of freshwater resources, climate change and the rise on sustainability awareness, all and more impose the necessity for better, automated, precise & efficient irrigation solutions”.

Then, Moshi up-dated on the 6 working groups of the Association.

Fleur Martin, EIA Communication Officer, welcomed the 5 new members, who have recently joined the EIA : Clearwater Asia, Hydralians, Sun’Agri, Vincent Trottet and Marco Bezzi.

This introduction was followed by 2 presentations :

• Guest Speaker: Michel Le Page, IRD – CESBIO, LMI TREMA, Marrakech, Maroc : Presentation of Sat-Irrig tool. The “Evapotranspiration” Scientific Expertise Centre (SEC) brings together teams from Cesbio, Emmah, Inrae and IRD that develop mapping of evapotranspiration, particularly over irrigated or unirrigated agricultural areas, based on thermal imagery (TIR) or reflectance imagery in the visible – near infrared domain (NDVI).
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• Innovation & Technology session– Damien Fumey, Sun’Agri : Dynamic agrivoltaics is an agricultural tool for crop protection developed by Sun’Agri. It involves constructing a system of solar louvres on top of the crops, which represents a real agronomic breakthrough that protects yields by combating water, heat and solar radiation stress.

The presentations were followed by an interactive questions and answers sessions and the association’s General Assembly.

The success of the EIA Irrigation Forum demonstrates the increasing interest of industry professionals to be involved, to learn and to have more information on European trends in our industry, sustainability, new technologies and water policy frameworks.

For those who are not yet members, we invite you to join EIA, to promote the continued development of irrigation products, practices and services, and to advocate for sustainable industry standards and water management policies that lead to a stable legal environment for irrigation professionals.

To watch the Forum’s video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-dKR0IIdUU&t=8s

To become a member of EIA, please register online:

https://irrigationeurope.eu/en/become-a-member/

To join one of the 6 Working Groups, please send an email to :

communication@irrigationeurope.eu