Measure I.1 – Improving the productivity and competitiveness of the area’s economic, rural, cultural and environmental resources
Project Title: Agriculture Forecast-Reporting System (AFRS) in the Cross Border Region
Project Budget:
| Project Value | EU Contribution | |
| Republic of Serbia | € 160.234,40 | €129.116,88 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | € 137.645,00 | €104.445,00 |
| TOTAL | €297.879,40 | €233.561,88 |
Beneficiary of funds in the Republic of Serbia: Agricultural Extension service
Beneficiary of funds in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Federal Institute for Agriculture
Partners:
- Regional Development Agency Zlatibor, Serbia
- Sarajevo Economic Region Development Agency, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Area of implementation:
- Serbia: Municipalities of Užice, Požega, Kosjerić, B.Bašta, Čajetina, Nova Varoš, Prijepolje, and Priboj
- Bosnia and Herzegovina: Municipalities of Goražde, Olovo, Vogošća, Pale Prača, Ilijaš, Ilidža, Foča Ustikolina, and Fojnica
The target groups of the project: Farmers / local governments from the project region.
Project duration: 01.03.2013. – 31.05.2014.
Project objectives:
The overall objective:
To contribute improve the competitiveness of stakeholders in agriculture sector in project area in using land as economic, rural and environmental resource
The specific objective of the project:
Establishment of the innovative concept of integrated agriculture production based on IT forecasting and reporting between agriculture extension service providers and production sector in project area.
Activities and results of the project
The project established a unique system that, using modern IT technology, provides timely information to the farmers regarding weather conditions. Also, it is to provide advice on steps to be taken in order to protect crops from potentially harmful conditions or pests. In order to do that system gathers different data through the weather stations in the field and processes this data to get valuable recommendations.
Such practice, which is enabled by using expertize existing in other European countries, decreases costs for farmers, and increases overall production and thus the profit too. On the other side consumers get healthier and better quality products.
During the implementation of the project 20 weather stations were installed in Srbiji (Užice, Čajetina, Bajina Bašta, Nova Varoš, Priboj, Prijepolje, Požega i Kosjerić) and 15 in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Goražde, Olovo, Vogošća, Pale Prača, Ilijaš, Ilidža, Foča, Ustikolina i Fojnica).
Along the installation of the stations a specialized software has been created to process the data collected at the micro locations of the weather stations. Upon the processing of the data SMS messages are being sent to farmers with the recommendations which pesticides to use and how to use them in order to protect plants from pests and diseases. This ensures decrease in amounts of chemicals since they are being used only when necessary.
