AGCO Agriculture Foundation & Bern University of Applied Sciences Launches a 3-year Project to Improve Crop Sustainability

The AGCO Agriculture Foundation (AAF), a private foundation dedicated to preventing and alleviating hunger through sustainable agricultural development, announced today a CHF 195,000 donation to Bern University of Applied Sciences (School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences).

The donation will help fund the implementation of a three-year farm project to promote the use of non-tillage weed control methods on lightweight field robots in Central Europe's cool and wet climate. The project will concentrate on non-contact weed control methods in conjunction with small robots to help increase crop production sustainability, prevent soil compaction, and minimise weed emergence. The project work will be completed within the context of University students working on master's and bachelor's theses on the project's focus and other related sustainability issues.

The project's emerging knowledge findings and innovations will be shared with farmers and key stakeholders in order to improve sustainable crop production and on-farm operation efficiency. Supporting farmers to increase farm productivity is becoming increasingly important as changing climatic conditions have exacerbated weed problems and continue to impact global food production.

Furthermore, farm solutions such as small and lightweight semi-autonomous field robots have the potential to significantly increase crop production efficiency while reducing soil pressure impact. The project will promote the use of precision-planted arable crops in rows as a substitute, making more areas available, in collaboration with the Bern University of Applied Sciences (School of Agricultural, Forest, and Food Sciences) and technical support from the AGCO Swiss Future Farm.

"Food production efficiency remains one of the world's most difficult agricultural challenges in the face of climate events and change. We hope that by contributing to programmes like this one with Bern University, we can help meet some of these challenges while also advancing education in this area for the benefit of farming communities throughout Europe "AGCO Agriculture Foundation Board Chair Roger Batkin commented.

The AGCO Agriculture Foundation (AAF) is a private foundation with the mission of preventing and alleviating hunger. The foundation launches impactful programmes that promote food security, foster sustainable agricultural development and construct critical agricultural infrastructure in underserved farming communities.