Here's a cool YouTube promotional movie on AgroSense created by Ordina in the Netherlands. AgroSense is an open source Java system for the precision agriculture industry, which won the IT Environment Award in the Netherlands last week:
If your understanding of Dutch limits your appreciation of the movie above, here's a rough translation, together with the names of the speakers in the movie:
Precision agriculture, an innovative form of agriculture in which local variations in soil, crop, and atmosphere are taken into account, is the high-tech sustainable agriculture of tomorrow. The use of fertilizer, water, and energy can in this way be significantly reduced.
"If, ten or twenty years from now, we are to continue having our agricultural industry in good shape, and in a continuing state of health, we'll need to register and work with data because if we want to enable crops to provide higher value, we'll need to create higher levels of transparency throughout the agriculture chain." Lenus Hamster, farmer in Nieuwolda Groningen
"Industry is becoming increasingly data intensive. By combining pragmatic usefulness with innovative sustainability, AgroSense offers the Netherlands the possibility to continue being a leading player in the agrofood sector." Art Lighthart, Architect at Ordina
AgroSense offers an open source solution in which all services for precision agriculture are brought together. In 2012, co-operation is being sought with organizations to make AgroSense available to around 10,000 Dutch farmers in the arable crop sector.
By the way, the last sentence above implies the NetBeans Platform will be used by around 10,000 Dutch farmers.
