The farmer.pl portal has nominated our farm for the Innowacyjny Farmer (Innovative Farmer) title in the technology category. It is a nomination, not a win, but we treat it as outside confirmation of the direction we have been taking for years: less chemistry, more precision and data. In this post we show which solutions from our fields, sorting hall and storage facility stand behind it, and what has changed here since then.
What this distinction is
Innowacyjny Farmer is a competition run by the farmer.pl portal that recognises farms putting modern solutions to work in everyday operations, not just at trade fairs. We received the nomination in the technology category, in the 2022 edition. The editorial team described our farm in a dedicated article at the time and filmed a feature on the technologies we work with in the Żuławy region.
The farm has grown a great deal since then. Today we run more than 800 hectares, including around 400 hectares of vegetables, work with 87 machines and store vegetables in our own storage facility holding around 13,000 tonnes. The technologies that caught the editors' attention back then, we have since built on with more.
Spot spraying instead of spraying the whole field
The most distinctive machine in our fleet is the Ecorobotix ARA spot sprayer: 6 metres of working width, 156 nozzles and a 6x6 cm grid. AI-powered cameras recognise weeds on the move and open only the nozzles sitting exactly over the target. Instead of spraying the whole field, we hit individual plants.
The result: we cut chemical rates by around 70 percent, while the main crop stays fully protected. To our knowledge it is one of only three such machines working in Poland. How it performs in the field and why we bought it for good, we describe in the post on Ecorobotix ARA spot spraying.
Cameras and AI in the sorting hall
The other side of the same philosophy works in the sorting hall. The DOWNS CropVision optical sorter scans every onion, potato and beetroot through 360 degrees, recognises defects, stones and clods of soil, then rejects them at a throughput of up to 100 tonnes per hour. A human cannot inspect every single piece in a batch counted in hundreds of tonnes, AI-powered cameras can. We show the details in the post on the DOWNS CropVision optical sorter.
Centimetre accuracy in the field
The foundation of daily work is precision farming: GPS Trimble with RTK correction, John Deere Auto Pilot parallel guidance and variable rate fertilisation. Machines travel the field with centimetre accuracy, with no overlaps or missed strips, and rates adjust to the needs of each zone of the field. How it works and what it really delivers, we explain in the post on GPS RTK and precision farming.
Three technologies, one result
| Solution | What it does | What the buyer gains |
|---|---|---|
| Ecorobotix ARA | spot spraying on a 6x6 cm grid, cameras + AI | around 70 percent less chemistry, cleaner produce |
| DOWNS CropVision | 360-degree scan of every piece, up to 100 t/h | uniform batches free of defects and debris |
| GPS RTK and variable rate application | centimetre precision in sowing, fertilisation and crop protection | an even crop across the whole area |
Why we do all this
Technology is not an end in itself for us. We choose solutions that solve a specific problem in the field or in the store, not ones that look good in a brochure. Spot spraying grew out of the need to protect onions, which keep an open soil profile all season long and face heavy weed pressure. The optical sorter answers the requirements of buyers who take hundreds of tonnes from us and have no room for surprises in a batch. It all leads to one end result: we produce using pesticide residue-free technology, in line with the principles of Integrated Plant Production, and we test every batch for pesticide residues, heavy metals and substances hazardous to health. On top of that come the GlobalG.A.P., GRASP, FSA Gold (Farm Sustainability Assessment, the highest level) and GMP+ certificates.
For a wholesale buyer the nomination changes nothing in the price list, but it says one important thing: the technological standard of our farm has been judged not only by customers, but also by a trade editorial team that sees hundreds of farms a year. All the equipment we work with every day is shown in our machinery fleet.
Want to see how this standard translates into produce? See our onion offer or write to us via our contact page and we will talk technology around a specific order.
