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Agricultural Engineering for Sustainable Agriculture

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2022) | Viewed by 36010

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Eugenio Cavallo

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Guest Editor

Institute for Agricultural and Earthmoving Machinery, Italian National Research Council, 7-00185 Rome, Italy
Interests: mechanization; innovation; natural resources; sustainability; safety; health; ergonomics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Niccolò Pampuro

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Guest Editor

Institute for Agricultural and Earthmoving Machinery, Italian National Research Council, 7-00185 Rome, Italy
Interests: composting process; agro-food waste; GHG; organic fertilizer, densification process; circular economy

Dr. Marcella Biddoccu

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Guest Editor

Institute for Agricultural and Earthmoving Machinery, Italian National Research Council, 7-00185 Rome, Italy
Interests: soil and water conservation; soil compaction; soil erosion; agriculture water management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Agriculture must satisfy the rising demand for safe and healthy food, feed, and fibers from a growing human population, without depleting non-renewable resources or compromising the environment, assuring economic profitability, and social and economic equity.

Agricultural engineering has great potential to enhance the global sustainability of agriculture in all fields of application, from the development and correct use of innovative machinery to the latest application of digital farming solutions. Such innovative solutions apply to the efficient production of crops as to the processing of biological resources to satisfy the demand of consumers and a wide range of industries for food, feed, fibers, bio-energy, and bio-based products. Agricultural engineering plays an essential role in developing engineering-based methodologies and decision support tools for waste process and treatment to reduce the greenhouse gas emission, to reduce and correctly apply pesticides and fertilizers, and for management and protection of soil, water, and environmental resources. Sustainable agriculture engineering notions include the novel design of structures, facilities, monitoring devices, and equipment for agricultural production and ergonomic and work organization.

The object of this Special Issue is to collect contributions related to engineering applications to promote sustainable agriculture in different geographical, technical, climatic, and socio-economic contexts. Contributions can have potential exploitation for every actor involved in the agricultural system, from farmers to consumers, from researchers to policymakers and land planners, from service providers to technical resources (machinery, chemicals, etc.) producers. Manuscripts demonstrating the relevance of agricultural engineering in achieving the United Nations sustainable development goals, the European Green Deal and Farm to Fork Strategy and the promotion of the paradigm of the circular economy and digitization in agriculture are welcome.

This Special Issue focuses, but is not limited, to the agricultural engineering in the following areas:

Agricultural machinery, equipment, and structures;
Agricultural resource management (including land use and water use);
Agro-food waste management;
Biofuels and renewable energies;
Circular economy;
Energy efficiency and conservation;
ICT, artificial intelligence, decision support systems, and solutions for digital and precision agriculture
Livestock production (including pig, poultry, fish, and dairy animals)
Livestock waste management and emission;
Nutrient recycling;
Organic farming;
Climatology and atmospheric science;
Soil management and conservation (including erosion and erosion control, compaction and sealing);
Sustainable postharvest management practices;
Water management and conservation and storage for crop irrigation and livestock production.

Dr. Eugenio Cavallo
Dr. Niccolò Pampuro
Dr. Marcella Biddoccu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

agriculture mechanization
agricultural buildings and facilities
agricultural resources management
waste management and recycling
green-house gasses emission
carbon sequestration
livestock production and management
bio-energies
energy efficiency in agriculture
circular economy
precision farming
smart farming digital farming
organic farming
climate change and mitigation
soil management and conservation
postharvest technology
water conservation storage and utilization

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 4924 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Analysis of Deep Learning CNN Models for Variety Classification in Hazelnut

by Alper Taner, Yeşim Benal Öztekin and Hüseyin Duran

Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6527; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126527 - 08 Jun 2021

Cited by 40 | Viewed by 4095

Abstract

In evaluating agricultural products, knowing the specific product varieties is important for the producer, the industrialist, and the consumer. Human labor is widely used in the classification of varieties. It is generally performed by visual examination of each sample by experts, which is very laborious and time-consuming with poor sensitivity. There is a need in commercial hazelnut production for a rapid, non-destructive and reliable variety classification in order to obtain quality nuts from the orchard to the consumer. In this study, a convolutional neural network, which is one of the deep learning methods, was preferred due to its success in computer vision. A total of 17 widely grown hazelnut varieties were classified. The proposed model was evaluated by comparing with pre-trained models. Accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-Score evaluation metrics were used to determine the performance of classifiers. It was found that the proposed model showed a better performance than pre-trained models in terms of performance evaluation criteria. The proposed model was found to produce 98.63% accuracy in the test set, including 510 images. This result has shown that the proposed model can be used practically in the classification of hazelnut varieties. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Engineering for Sustainable Agriculture)

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20 pages, 1691 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Environmental Performance of Chocolate Produced in Ghana Using Life Cycle Assessment

by Kofi Armah Boakye-Yiadom, Daniele Duca, Ester Foppa Pedretti and Alessio Ilari

Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 6155; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116155 - 30 May 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 5909

Abstract

Ghana is an important cocoa producer and exporter and this production is of high economic importance. Increasing interest in the sustainable productions of cocoa/chocolate necessitated the need to assess the environmental impacts associated with the production of different chocolate variants (extra dark (EDC), dark (DC), milk (MC) and flavoured milk (FMC) in Ghana, including the identification of environmental hotspots for improvement. The life cycle assessment tool was used following the CML_IA and CED impact assessment methods. EDC had the lowest scores for most of the impact categories while FMC was most impactful. For Global Warming Potential (GWP), EDC and FMC were estimated to be 1.61 kg CO₂ eq. and 4.21 kg CO₂ eq., respectively. CED ranged from 1.44 × 10² to 1.50 × 10² MJ-eq. Chocolate manufacturing phase was generally more impactful than cocoa cultivation due to high emissions from milk and sugar production. The impact scores for 100 g packaged chocolate bar were the lowest in comparison to 300 g chocolate pouches and 12.5 g packaged chocolate strips. GWP for 100 g and 12.5 g were 0.20 kg CO₂ eq. and 0.39 kg CO₂ eq., respectively. Comparing different destination points for the manufactured chocolate, impact scores for the international destination were similar to those recorded for local destinations. Improvement options are suggested for all phases to ensure more sustainable chocolate production and distribution. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Engineering for Sustainable Agriculture)

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26 pages, 7955 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Low-Cost Platform for Environmental Smart Farming Monitoring System Based on IoT and UAVs

by Faris A. Almalki, Ben Othman Soufiene, Saeed H. Alsamhi and Hedi Sakli

Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 5908; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115908 - 24 May 2021

Cited by 101 | Viewed by 7634

Abstract

When integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) occurred, tens of applications including smart agriculture have emerged to offer innovative solutions to modernize the farming sector. This paper aims to present a low-cost platform for comprehensive environmental parameter monitoring using flying IoT. This platform is deployed and tested in a real scenario on a farm in Medenine, Tunisia, in the period of March 2020 to March 2021. The experimental work fulfills the requirements of automated and real-time monitoring of the environmental parameters using both under- and aboveground sensors. These IoT sensors are on a farm collecting vast amounts of environmental data, where it is sent to ground gateways every 1 h, after which the obtained data is collected and transmitted by a drone to the cloud for storage and analysis every 12 h. This low-cost platform can help farmers, governmental, or manufacturers to predict environmental data over the geographically large farm field, which leads to enhancement in crop productivity and farm management in a cost-effective, and timely manner. Obtained experimental results infer that automated and human-made sets of actions can be applied and/or suggested, due to the innovative integration between IoT sensors with the drone. These smart actions help in precision agriculture, which, in turn, intensely boost crop productivity, saving natural resources. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Engineering for Sustainable Agriculture)

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14 pages, 2684 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Life Cycle Assessment of Protected Strawberry Productions in Central Italy

by Alessio Ilari, Giuseppe Toscano, Kofi Armah Boakye-Yiadom, Daniele Duca and Ester Foppa Pedretti

Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 4879; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13094879 - 27 Apr 2021

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3148

Abstract

Agricultural activities in Europe cover half of the total area of the continent and are simultaneously a cause of environmental impact and victims of the same impact. Horticultural or fruit crops are considered highly intensive and often employ many crop inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and various materials. Strawberry falls into this group, and it has grown in acreage and production more than others globally. The aim of this study is to compare the environmental impact of two strawberry cultivation systems in central Italy, a mulched soil tunnel and a soilless tunnel system. The method used to assess the impact is LCA, widely applied in agriculture and supported by international standards. The data used are mainly primary, related to 2018, and representative of the cultivation systems of central Italy. For impact assessment, the method selected was the CML_IA baseline version. From the results obtained, the two systems show a similar impact per kg of strawberries produced (e.g., for global warming: 0.785 kg CO₂ eq for soilless, 0.778 kg CO₂ eq for mulched soil tunnel). Reduced differences can be observed for the use of crop inputs (greater for the tunnel) and the use of materials and technology (greater for soilless). The mitigation measures considered concern the replacement of the packaging (excluding plastic) and the growing medium of the soilless using perlite and compost from insect breeding. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Engineering for Sustainable Agriculture)

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10 pages, 1917 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainability of Machinery Traffic in Vineyard

by Domenico Pessina, Lavinia Eleonora Galli, Stefano Santoro and Davide Facchinetti

Sustainability 2021, 13(5), 2475; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052475 - 25 Feb 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1505

Abstract

Viticulture involves significant levels of machinery traffic, causing heavy soil compaction. In particular, the compaction of the subsoil is increased; a deep tillage could certainly solve the problem, but the risk of damage to the plants’ root system is high. The aim of this study was to investigate the trend of both the top- and the sub-soil compaction in a hillside vineyard located in Tuscany (Italy), investigating different machine-implement combinations, i.e., self-propelled machinery or narrow tractor coupled to implements. The tests were repeated periodically along the entire growing season, approximately every 6–8 weeks (end of May, end of July and first decade of October). A single test included at least 50 sample measurements, recorded randomly along each inter-row investigated. In the surveyed field, the inter-rows were alternatively covered with grass, or tilled in the top layer during the previous wintertime. Two experimental test sets were developed: the first involved the use of two implements (a sprayer and a grape harvester) towed by narrow tractors, while in the second the pesticide distribution and the harvesting were performed with a properly equipped self-propelled tool carrier. All the other farming operations were executed using the same implements in both cases. Balanced use of the self-propelled tool carrier and the traditional tractor-implement combination allows a better distribution of the soil compaction (in particular in the top-soil), thus improving the root-growing efficiency. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Engineering for Sustainable Agriculture)

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Review

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17 pages, 841 KiB

Open AccessReview

Greenhouse Robots: Ultimate Solutions to Improve Automation in Protected Cropping Systems—A Review

by Giorgia Bagagiolo, Giovanni Matranga, Eugenio Cavallo and Niccolò Pampuro

Sustainability 2022, 14(11), 6436; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116436 - 25 May 2022

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4470

Abstract

In recent years, agricultural robotics has received great attention in research studies, being considered a way to address some important issues of the agricultural sector, such as precision agriculture, resources saving, improvement of safety conditions, and shortage of human labor. These issues are particularly relevant in greenhouse production systems, where many highly repetitive and sometimes dangerous operations are still required to be performed by humans. The purpose of the present review is providing an overview of the research conducted in recent years related to robotic automation for greenhouse applications. The currently available literature about robots and automated solutions for greenhouse applications has been reviewed through the consultation of international databases of journals. A total of 38 publications were included after screening and the information related to each retrieved automated solution was classified. The research highlighted great variability among studies, which often describe automation solutions designed for specific crops and define the specific “supporting tasks” necessary for the completion of a “main task”. Specifically, the technologies used for guidance and navigation systems, crop detection and fruit grasping system, spraying system, and other minor supporting tasks have been described. Furthermore, a critical appraisal of the main challenges of the sector and future research directions are provided. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Engineering for Sustainable Agriculture)

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17 pages, 1341 KiB

Open AccessReview

Interaction between Biofilm Formation, Surface Material and Cleanability Considering Different Materials Used in Pig Facilities—An Overview

by Erika Yukari Nakanishi, Joahnn H. Palacios, Stéphane Godbout and Sébastien Fournel

Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 5836; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115836 - 22 May 2021

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3779

Abstract

Sometimes the contamination in pig facilities can persist even after the washing and disinfection procedure. Some factors could influence this persistence, such as bacteria type, biofilm formation, material type and washing parameters. Therefore, this review summarizes how the type of surface can influence bacteria colonization and how the washing procedure can impact sanitary aspects, considering the different materials used in pig facilities. Studies have shown that biofilm formation on the surface of different materials is a complex system influenced by environmental conditions and the characteristics of each material’s surface and group of bacteria. These parameters, along with the washing parameters, are the main factors having an impact on the removal or persistence of biofilm in pig facilities even after the cleaning and disinfection processes. Some options are available for proper removal of biofilms, such as chemical treatments (i.e., detergent application), the use of hot water (which is indicated for some materials) and a longer washing time. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Agricultural Engineering for Sustainable Agriculture)

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