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What is precision agriculture? A tractor that applies fertilizer only when needed, and in the exact dose the soil can absorb. A drone flying over crops to detect areas with water stress before it becomes visible to the naked eye. A sensor that indicates whether an olive tree needs more water or if the optimal harvest time has arrived.

Today, data is just as important as land or machinery. It’s becoming more visible, more precise, and easier to interpret. Knowing what’s happening in every inch of soil —and being able to act accordingly— completely transforms the way we farm.

The logic is simple, but the impact is huge: applying the right dose, in the right place, at the right time. Less waste, less environmental impact, higher yields, and greater sustainability. All thanks to sensors, images, algorithms, and agronomic decisions based on data.

At the University of Lleida, the Research Group in AgróTICa and Agricultura de Precisión (GRAP) -Precision Agriculture (GRAP) has been working for over 20 years to make technology useful in the field. They don’t design sensors, but they adapt them from other sectors and test them with real crops and real data. Their specialty is verifying which technologies work, under what conditions, and how to adapt them to the daily operations of an agricultural estate.

This group, linked to the CERCA Agrotecnio center, uses satellite imagery, remote sensing, robotic systems, and data analysis. Their areas of work range from estimating fruit size and quantity —to better plan the harvest— to the localized application of phytosanitary treatments. The key is not to accumulate data, but to use it well: turning information into useful and well-calibrated decisions.

Until recently, farmland was managed as if everything were the same. But soils are not the same. Nor is plant vigor. Nor yield. That’s why precision matters: because what happens in one part of the field doesn’t necessarily happen in the rest. And adapting management to that variability improves efficiency and enables more sustainable farming.

Agricultural innovation has sprouted in research centers, but it’s already growing in the fields.

• Raimat, a wine and cava producer, has been combining sensors and remote sensing for years to fine-tune the care of each vine.
  Torres, a pioneer in organic viticulture, measures water stress, optimizes irrigation, and monitors vineyard growth using satellite imagery and real-time climate data.

Precision agriculture allows us to farm better. But it also helps us prepare for a future with more mouths to feed, where we’ll need to produce more—sustainably and without cutting down a single additional tree.