MED Director and Researchers were present at the XII Iberian Agroengineering Congress in Seville

From September 4 to 6, Seville hosted the XII Iberian Congress of Agroengineering, an event that aims to be a meeting point for researchers and technicians in the field of Rural Engineering from Portugal, Spain and the entire Ibero-American community.

MED was represented by its Director, Fátima Baptista, and the researchers and professors António Bento Dias and João Serrano, who participated with oral communications, presenting MED and some of the research work carried out in this area.

Fátima Baptista, director of MED and professor in the Department of Rural Engineering at the University of Évora, was one of the guest speakers at the congress, where she gave a talk entitled “Sustainable food production in a Mediterranean context – The MED strategy”, in which she explained the MED R&D unit and some of the projects being developed by MED researchers that have marked innovation and sustainability in food production.

António Bento Dias, a MED researcher and professor in the Department of Rural Engineering at the University of Évora, took part in the session  “Mechanization, Safety and Health at Work”, in which he presented the results of research carried out in a 20-year-old intensive olive grove, in which he assessed the influence of ground speed on the performance of the continuous olive harvesting machine prototype (MCCA). In this context, it is worth highlighting the Best Paper Award presented in this thematic area.

João Serrano, a MED researcher and professor in the Department of Rural Engineering at the University of Évora, presented two papers in the thematic session “Precision Agriculture”, one on the application of collecting vineyard parameters, such as soil electrical conductivity, to support vineyard management, and the other comparing the influence of two types of sheep grazing (deferred vs. continuous) on soil compaction in a Montado plot, using ultrasonic depth sensors.

During the three-day congress, participants had the opportunity to analyse, update and discuss scientific advances in the field of rural engineering. In a world that is increasingly changing and facing more and more challenges, such as climate change, the emerging need to conserve and preserve soil, water and biodiversity, and limiting the use of pesticides, it is imperative that scientific and industrial research and development in agricultural and biosystems engineering collaborate to offer technological solutions that work in practice.