Messinia’s olive farms might not be what you first expect when thinking of cutting edge IoT research and development. People have been farming in this region for many hundreds of years, primarily using traditional techniques that are being handed down from one generation to the next. In fact, many of the olive trees in this region are over 1.000 years old. At the same time, modern times are never far away. Chora is situated less than 10km to the west of Costa Navarino, a luxury holiday destination and home to one of the largest and most modern holiday resorts in Greece.

The contrast between modern mass-tourism and traditional farming in Messinia is striking. However, through IoF2020, the farmers of Chora have shown that they too can use modern technology to their advantage. Over the past few years they have implemented several IoT solutions, which have helped them improve their crop management decision-making. Furthermore, IoT solutions enabled them to predict pests and diseases more timely, and have increased their understanding of the impact of various processing parameters such as milling temperature on the quality of their olive oil.

The involvement of the Nileas group in IoF2020 is a win-win situation for farmers and researchers alike. Georgios Kokkinos, one of the farmers involved, explains: “We gain valuable knowledge regarding new technologies that we use to improve the decision-making in our own olive production, and that we can share with other farmers in our region. What we offer IoF2020’s technology providers and researchers is the ability to test smart farming technologies on a typical Mediterranean olive orchard that is cultivated using common farming practices under real conditions. Moreover, we provide direct market feedback on the usability of the solutions that we test.”