Making farming more sustainable
Three women spin-off founders from ETH Zurich have developed a portable measuring device that analyses soil quality and enables customised fertilisation. The device makes farming more sustainable and efficient while reducing its environmental impact.
“It’s been quite a journey from our initial idea to actually setting up a company,” says agronomist Hélène Iven. Working together with Sonia Meller and Jasmin Fetzer, she has developed a device to measure soil quality: “We had such a lot of support from the Student Project House. That real?ly helped us make a go of it!” An ETH Pioneer Fellowship – designed to help start-ups find their feet – also came in handy. Soil has a major impact on crop yields, and it is equally important in the fight against climate change.
Currently, many farms continue to apply fertilisers indiscrimin?ately, regardless of which nutrients the plants actually need and which ones the soil already contains. This not only drives up costs but also places an extra burden on the environment. With the portable measuring device from the ETH spin-off Digit Soil, farmers can now measure nutrient availability directly in the field without having to send off a soil sample for lab analysis. The results are then combined with local data such as weather, soil composition and climatic conditions to create a customised fertilisation plan for the specific location.
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This text appeared in the 25/02 issue of the ETH magazine Globe.