CSIC researchers develop an application to optimise farmers' work

The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has led the development of a new mobile application that allows farmers to identify sustainable soil and water management practices that best suit their farm’s conditions, making a preliminary assessment of the effectiveness and difficulty in their implementation. The application is now available on Google Play for free and in Spanish, English and Chinese. It is also available in the CSIC digital repository.

This tool has been developed in the context of the SHui project "Soil Hydrology research platform underpinning innovation to manage water scarcity in European and Chinese cropping systems", a Horizon 2020 initiative between the European Union and China. José A. Gómez, researcher at the Institute of Sustainable Agriculture (IAS-CSIC), the coordinator of the project, whose central element is the development of strategies to cope with water scarcity in different agricultural systems, while protecting the soil resource and strengthening cooperation between Europe and China on these issues. It has also led the development of SHuBest as part of its technical activity within the project.

José A. Gómez from IAS-CSIC commented on the new application: 

“The research responsible say it will be very useful because it is a simple gateway to good practices for sustainable soil and water management in agriculture, designed so that any farmer or person from inside or outside the sector without prior knowledge can identify the different practices available and how their viability and effectiveness are determined by the particular conditions of a farm. It is supported by a guide to good management practices developed within the project that users can download free of charge, in Spanish, English and Chinese, to expand their knowledge. Both the app and the guide culminate the effort to standardise terminology and concepts between different languages and technical traditions, being one of the few tools of its kind to cover three of the most widely spoken languages in the world".