Finish in Puglia to combat desertification

The ‘Water in our hands’ project, the Finish initiative, is back, with the support of the Future Food Institute, which challenges drought and which puts water and its protection at the center of all activities, representing its commitment through concrete interventions on the territory. On the occasion of the World Day for the Fight against Desertification and Drought, which is celebrated every year on June 17, Finish shows how targeted interventions can make a difference and this year it arrives in Puglia to combat desertification. “With our project for years we have wanted to intervene in the area and this year we are in Puglia which is one of the regions with the highest risk of desertification: 57% of the territory, in fact, is at risk. In this region we will convert an arid land in an agricultural land through the planting of about 500 olive trees in the province of Brindisi and we do this thanks to technology that plays a fundamental role in combating water waste “explains to Adnkronos, Luca Spadaro, project manager Finish ‘Acqua in our Mani ‘The initiative, therefore, after the activities in Cilento in 2020 and in Sicily in 2021, will stop this year in Puglia to support the planting and cultivation of the olive tree, a fundamental plant for maintaining the correct environmental balance and barrier natural against desertification. The project, currently under construction, will see the direct planting of over 500 trees resistant to the Xylella bacterium and water monitoring of the crops on a total of 500 hectares distributed in the province of Brindisi, which will guarantee annual savings (considering the 20 weeks of summer season) of over 150 million liters of water. In support of this intervention, therefore, there will also be technology: an increasingly fundamental tool to help reduce the stress to which agriculture is subjected in our country. In continuity with what has been done in the past, the innovative ‘Daiki’ technology of SmartIsland will be installed, a Sicilian startup selected in 2021 as part of a dedicated Call for Startup, which will be able to detect climatic data from the moment of planting. and water useful for monitoring the water needs of plants, as well as preventing diseases. In particular, monitoring will be made possible through a series of Data Analysis technologies which aim to collect information on the cultivation status of the plant, in order to offer the correct water requirement and consequently generate a controlled irrigation activity. The data collected by artificial intelligence robots will not only be of a visual nature but also of a physical and chemical nature, offering information on possible adverse elements capable of attacking the plant, as well as providing the farmer with targeted feedback on the necessary interventions. The measured data is collected in real time by specific control units, connected with system integration capable of determining specific behaviors, such as the opening or closing of the valves and the actuation of the motors. “In such a delicate context, even the companies can make their contribution: we try to commit ourselves with concrete and measured interventions. The example of Puglia involves a saving of 150 million liters of water, in Sicily we have saved 100 million liters of water: these are concrete examples which have a scalable potential that we hope will be replicable in other models “concludes Spadaro.