Orbia’s precision agriculture business, Netafim, successfully delivers digital farming with all-in-one irrigation operating system GrowSphere™

Orbia Advance Corporation’s S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: ORBIA*) Precision Agriculture business group Netafim announces GrowSphere, a unique operating system automating precision irrigation and fertigation. GrowSphere has delivered significant benefits to thousands of farmers across diverse topographies and climates. The system has proven to boost value per hectare by improving operational efficiency and providing reliable implementation for growers at all stages of their irrigation and fertigation automation journey.

Farmers today face a variety of environmental pressures, from climate change to soil erosion and biodiversity loss. To meet these challenges, farmers are investing in new technologies, like GrowSphere, to increase productivity and drive efficiency across their agricultural practices.

GrowSphere was designed by precision irrigation pioneer Orbia Netafim, in collaboration with industry-leading PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) providers and cloud platform providers. It has been validated by top universities and irrigation institutes. The operating system combines over 50 years of agronomic expertise and crop data with cutting-edge digital farming technologies including IoT, cloud computing and data analytics. GrowSphere is the only solution on the market that effortlessly integrates three crucial capabilities – hydraulic, operational and agronomic – into one operating system, significantly reducing the need for manual in-field operations.

″As they face an increasingly unpredictable environment, growers seek greater control and stability over their crop production. GrowSphere’s intuitive operating system further positions Orbia Netafim as the ideal partner for farmer success with our unrivaled agronomic insight on crop cultivation,″ said Gaby Miodownik, Executive Vice President, and President of Orbia’s Precision Agriculture business (Netafim). ″With GrowSphere, Netafim enables farmers to ‘close the loop’ on their operations. We firmly believe this system will be adopted by many more growers and ultimately lead to greater profitability for their businesses.″

GrowSphere maximizes crop yields and minimizes water and fertilizer usage, while allowing farmers to stay on top of what is happening in their fields. Willian Ferreira, Manager of Santa Maria and Jatobá farms in Pedregulho, Brazil, comments, ″I’ve been really impressed with GrowSphere’s ease of use, reliability and cost optimization, and I’ve encountered notable savings in fertilizer, water and energy usage, and most importantly, in time. This solution provides farmers with the confidence to grow more with less, with precision, from wherever they are.″

Key features of GrowSphere’s Operating System: 

• Monitors soil, weather, crop, and irrigation status with real-time updates from fields. 

• Controls irrigation and fertigation systems from anywhere via cloud-based access. 

• Provides timely alerts about irrigation or system maintenance issues.  

• Generates reports to support traceability and track crop performance from season to season.  

• GrowSphere™ Crop Advisor leverages a powerful algorithm to enhance irrigation plans with recommendations tailored to specific stages in a crop’s lifecycle.

Orbia Netafim is developing partnerships for GrowSphere to broaden the company’s range of solutions and further enhance its capabilities.