2023-06-06 15:04:27
With the European unitary patent, innovators can more easily protect their intellectual property at EU level. In the Netherlands, an agricultural company multiplies inventions to improve farming conditions.
While the european unitary patent comes into force in June, we discover a particularly innovative agricultural company in the Netherlands. Lely has filed 1600 patents for some 300 inventions. THE single patent market represents a step forward for her.
We discover some of his innovations on a farm in the southwest of the country. This dairy farm, which houses 180 cows, is equipped with several company robots that harvest fodder, feed and milk the animals. Lely’s Chief Technology Officer explains what these technologies are all about.
The technical challenge of robotic milking
“It really changes the lives of farmers, it has a big impact on their social life, on their working methods,” indique Martijn Boelens. “It has an effect on how they can treat their cows, on improving the lives of the cows because they make their own choices, they are free to roam to do what they want at the time. where they want it: that’s the whole concept of robotic milking and, of course, technically it’s a very big challenge,” he assures.
“Changing Methods in Agriculture”
“Our workhorse is robotization, but also everything related to data and their use,” continues the chief technology officer at Lely. “How can we improve the life of farmers and make it easier, better use data thanks to artificial intelligence?” he describes. “We’re looking to invent things that don’t yet exist to truly change the way farming is done,” he points out.
Towards circular dairy farming
“La “Sphere” [ndlr : l’un des robots conçus par l’entreprise] is our latest creation and we have started researching how to make dairy farming circular again, i.e. how to ensure that all the minerals on the farms stay there and are reused,” Precise Martijn Boelens. “One of the first questions was how to capture nitrogen and that’s what the Sphere does: it captures nitrogen – which avoids ammonia emissions – and turns it into fertilizer,” he specifies.
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