Augmenta 2020: The Year in Review

Highlights include:

• the Augmenta Platform is now smaller and has a wider scanning area.
• the initialization and phenomenal growth of our global sales and distributor network.
• making important inroads into brand new markets as far away as Australia.
• the introduction of new VR services such as PGR.
• being conferred both the EIMA Tech Innovation and Blue awards for 2020-21.

The Augmenta Platform got a makeover during the year with its physical size reduced and tractor cabin roof mounting improved.

Importantly, a new camera array enables a much wider scanning area – up to 40 meters – thereby allowing for greater functionality and accuracy. Moreover, improvements to the tablet interface have made an already simple set-up procedure even easier.

Augmenta aims at serving markets with a local presence. That is precisely why we instigated our Global Distributor Partners initiative in 2020. It immediately generated interest from highly experienced agricultural machinery and sales experts, many of whom attended a special Field Day hosted at Augmenta's Testing Facility in the rural heartland of Greece. Astounding growth followed.

Augmenta now has a sales/distributor presence in more than fifteen countries around the world, thereby catering for the particular needs of those markets. The deals made with OptiFarm in Ireland and Hankkija Oy, Finland's largest agribusiness company, are excellent examples of the length and breadth of the initiative. Many CSI countries ranging from Azerbaijan to Russia and Ukraine are also recent additions to this ever-growing representation.

In terms of size and variability, few agricultural regions around the world compare to that of Australia. With a partnership deal struck with OzValueAg in March 2020, it was not long before Augmenta's Platform started operating in Australia for the very first time.

This allowed for the compilation of data specific to the broad-acre agricultural practices undertaken there, which in turn has paved the way for Augmenta Platform sales in the country affectionately known as 'down under'.

The Augmenta Platform began life as a real-time VR (Variable Rate) nitrogen fertilizer application system. However, its machine vision based intelligence makes it capable of so much more. 2020 saw the introduction of brand new real-time VR services such as foliar fertilizer and harvest-aid defoliant applications. Importantly, a real-time PGR (Plant Growth Regulator) application service was also introduced.

This will be of particular benefit to cotton producers in order to suppress excessive vegetative growth and promote maturity. Anyone already with an Augmenta Platform has access to this increased functionality via simple over-the-air upgrades, with no additional hardware required.

These new services make the Augmenta Platform the world's first multifunctional application device of its kind and more are to follow; watch this space!

The Augmenta Team is dedicated to the instigation of better agricultural practices through the development of high technology. The creation of the Augmenta Platform – a truly innovative device without equal – is the manifestation of years of hard work, exhaustive testing and sustained effort undertaken so as to make that aspiration a reality. Therefore, we are especially proud to have been awarded First Prize for 'Technological Innovation' and the 'Outstanding Agricultural Aspects Blue Award' for 2020/21.

These awards were bestowed by EIMA International, the Italian Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers Federation, a long-established body renowned the world over. Both awards were conferred in the face of stiff competition from some of the world's biggest agricultural companies.

All these developments have broadened the size and scope of the Augmenta Community. Farmers all around the world are beginning to realize the benefits of the Augmenta Platform and Augmented Farming.

Efficiency is increased because inputs and waste are reduced. At the same time, productivity and earnings are seriously boosted, while operations are far kinder to the environment than traditional methods ever were.

All this in an affordable pay-as-you-go package which is easily installed on pre-existing machinery and even easier to use because it is real-time and fully automatic. Little wonder that the Augmenta Platform is empowering farmers, wherever they may be.

2020 was an extraordinary year, but an even brighter future awaits. We know because we are bringing it to you!