The reason why I decided to convert to high-tech five years ago, is because I thought that at the end of the era of all oil, which was for a time the main source of innovation in agriculture – and so the engine of the first agricultural revolution – the paths of the future would be by now ecology, biotechnologies and digitalization which would took over mechanization and chemistry.

For having been player in agrochemicals which is facing decline in innovation while the question of its impact on the environment and health rises more and more sharply, I have experienced as an engineer in agronomy, a devaluation of technical knowledge – outsourced to agricultural distribution or certain specialized service providers – in favor of sales. This is what prompted me to look to other horizons.

Determined to make the best possible use of my background in agronomy, I immediately dismissed the embryonic outlets of agroecology which is out of the market economy and, therefore not interested in my know-how as a developer. All the more so as I have some doubts about the viability of human-induced ecosystems under the precarious conditions of a now disturbed climate (see previous articles).

I hesitated to turn to biotechnologies embodied by the seed business, because it was clear to me that coming from an agricultural tradition linked to its historical vocation as a seed producer, it would be taken over by world leading agrochemical companies. For having been invited to the grand ball of mergers and acquisitions when I used to work in agrochemicals, I didn’t want to live again the same experience.

After having served for many years the input sector – agrochemicals and seeds – I therefore made the choice five years ago, to convert myself into the high tech. This sector appeared to me to meet the main challenges facing agriculture, starting with that of climate change. Greenhouse cultivation being the most obvious way to overcome this threat, I saw in digital applications in closed and therefore controlled environments, the means of enhancing the knowledge and the network that I had developed for fifteen years in horticulture.

Having become essential for the grower to compensate for the inadequate distribution of the resources required by the crop, digitalization is now recognized as a key factor to assist him in both operational and strategic decision-making.

Because the potential for high-tech applications in greenhouses is enormous, from the management of valuable data for operational and strategic decision-making to process management.

The process management mainly compensate for the inadequate distribution of crop-specific production factors in order to get the growth conditions required by the plant. The main role of the process computer, whose function is to manage the climate and irrigation, is actually to steer the actuators of an increasing number of equipment which make it possible to improve the distribution over time and space, of the resources required for this development.

As regards to water and fertilizer supplies, the computer controls a set of pumps, storage silos and valves that adjust the availability of irrigation to the needs of each plant that receives drip for instance, the right quantity required at all times. Regarding climate conditions, the challenge is to coordinate the action of motors of roof vents or curtains which are supposed to manage the exchanges of heat, humidity or light between the inside and outside of the greenhouse. Or boilers extended by a heating network which can be combined with hot water storage in buffer tanks, heat exchangers intended for phase transfers, etc.

Booming innovation in improving growing conditions results in the inflation of the number of equipment that the process computer must control. The ultimate closed greenhouse concept features a sophisticated « air treatment » system that makes it possible to decouple the greenhouse climate from outside weather, however drastic it may be.

While in a traditional (open) greenhouse, we depend on the outside humidity because we choose to control the temperature – as far as it is the main limiting factor on plant growth – the closed greenhouse enables to control both conditions. It is now entering climates marked either by hot and dry summers which are unfavorable to the development of the plant, or by excessively humid late seasons which are favorable to disease. We can guess that apart from these extreme circumstances that climate change could nevertheless make usual, the closed greenhouse will be recognized for its main advantage which is ultimately to allow perfect control of the greenhouse atmosphere under average weather circumstances; Who can do more can do less. I think that the closed greenhouse has a bright future, as far as the increasing pressure by the market on operating margins, pushes the grower to agronomic performance and therefore, imposes on him total control of the growing conditions.

Whether it is phase transfers or even fluid or gas flows, the role of the process computer is always to take advantage at the right time and at the right place, of the resources that nature distributes more and more chaotically under the effect of climate change.

In other words, the main goal is to dampen the fluctuations of a climate characterized by a random rainfall regime as well as increasingly anachronistic temperatures. From this point of view, the process computer could be defined as the instrument of virtuous low-carbon geoengineering that operates on a local mode – and in this regard does not claim to work on a geological scale.

When nature is no longer able to meet the needs of the crop despite the use of a process computer, the grower must address as a last resort to the market which provides city water, energy sources or liquid CO2. Due to the increasing scarcity of these resources, the process computer is then invited to mobilize them with sobriety.

Besides its role to manage processes, digital technology is also key for producers to assist them in their operational and strategic decision-making.

This is because the process computer, which is able to generate the mass of data related to climate and irrigation, is increasingly feeding a database connected to information analysis features. Furthermore, this database also collects other data on crop yield and also labor of employees to be replaced by robots in a near future. Digital technology then becomes a valuable mean for optimizing results in all domains, whether it is for instance staff management, management of energy sources or the choice of varieties. The ERP concept is now being used in farms that are under pressure from both globalisation and rising cost of investments and so obliged to improve their performance at all levels or even to increase their acreage.