The EUREKA South Africa – Climate Smart Agriculture project, co-funded by EUREKA, FFG, TIA, started in Austria in February 2021. The consortium is made up of 3 very different but complementary-skilled partners: Pessl Instruments, METOS South Africa Pty. Ltd. (under Villa Crop Protection), and TerraClim/Geosmart.

The combined team of experts has been working on different work packages and tasks, being the main milestones summarized below:

1. Identification of locations in the Western Cape where the establishment of additional weather stations will have the largest positive impact on climate surface accuracies.
2. Production, shipment, delivery, and installation of 200 weather monitoring stations equipped with a set of climate monitoring sensors in those identified locations.
3. Development of a push report and notification system to service Agriculture Advisors and end-users (producers).
4. Development of disease modeling and forecasting, resulting in fewer chemicals being applied to the agriculture fields.
5. Improvement of the accuracy and resolution of climate surfaces, reducing the computational requirements, while functionally expanding the web app.

We are happy to share that milestones number 1 and 2 have been achieved during 2022, while numbers 3, 4, and 5 are in progress and planned to be finished in Q2 and Q3 2023.

Distributor meeting in Weiz, Austria

Our biyearly Distributor Meeting Europe, Middle East & Africa took place at Hotel Allmer in Weiz and at our Headquarters, from November 13 to 17, 2022. We marked our 14th edition and are very pleased about how it turned out. During the event, many of our experts and also representatives from our partners had the opportunity to present their projects and have a productive discussion about the future of the technology available for agricultural practices.

Amongst the presenters and presentations, it is worth mentioning:

• MSc. Eleonora Filippi (Chief Product Officer) presented the Irrigation Management Tools and the Road map for the API and our Web and Mobile app solutions.
• Dr. Heiner Denzer (Chief Innovation Officer) presented the news on city climate, animal welfare, and also on soil and sap analysis.
• Dr. Christina Pilz (Phytopathology and Entomology Lead at PESSL) presented the Disease and Pest Models.
• Uroš Maleš (IoT Product Manager) presented the news on IoT connectivity.
• Carina Olivier (Marketing Portfolio Lead: Ag‑Tech and Services from METOS SA) represented our partner TerraClim and presented the Practical Climate change application.
• Gabrielle Redelinghuys (Project Lead for Incubation Projects from METOS SA) presented the EUREKA SA CSA project.

Project meeting in Weiz, Austria

On the 17th of November, the project meeting took place at the HQs in Weiz, Austria. We finally had the opportunity to meet face-to-face with our partners from South Africa, Gabrielle Redelinghuys and Carina Olivier. Amongst the topics discussed:

• HW and FW solutions
• Next steps in the installation and service/support of the devices
• Weather Forecast and Disease Models Licenses
• Annual activity and financial reporting

In the photo, from left to right: Uroš Maleš (IoT PM, PI), Junia Rojic (Project management lead, PI), Gabrielle Redelinghuys (Project Lead for Incubation Projects, METOS SA), Vanessa Streilhofer (Key Account Manager, PI), Carina Schrank (Sales Assistant, PI), Carina Olivier (Marketing Portfolio Lead: Ag‑Tech and Services, METOS SA), Michael Parth (CTO, PI), and David Karibe (HW/FW Developer, PI).