Orbia’s Precision Agriculture Business, Netafim, Successfully Delivers Digital Farming with All-in-One Irrigation Operating System GrowSphere™
GrowSphere™ is the first digital farming solution on the market that integrates hydraulic, operational and agronomic capabilities into one intuitive operating system.
Tel Aviv, Israel, September 4, 2024 – 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.
About Orbia
Orbia Advance Corporation, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: ORBIA*) is a company driven by a shared purpose: to advance life around the world. Orbia operates in the Polymer Solutions (Vestolit and Alphagary), Building & Infrastructure (Wavin), Precision Agriculture (Netafim), Connectivity Solutions (Dura-Line) and Fluor & Energy Materials (Koura) sectors. The five Orbia business groups have a collective focus on ensuring food and water security, expanding information access and connectivity and advancing decarbonization and the energy transition with basic and advanced materials, specialty products and innovative solutions. Orbia has a global team of over 24,000 employees, commercial activities in more than 100 countries and operations in over 50, with global headquarters in Boston, Mexico City, Amsterdam and Tel Aviv. The company generated $8.2 billion in revenue in 2023. To learn more, visit: orbia.com
About Orbia Precision Agriculture (Netafim)
Orbia’s Precision Agriculture business Netafim is the world’s largest irrigation company and a global leader in precision agriculture solutions that address food, water and land scarcity for a sustainable future. Founded in 1965, Orbia Netafim pioneered the drip revolution, creating a paradigm shift toward precision irrigation. Today, by specializing in end-to-end solutions from the water source to the root zone, Orbia Netafim delivers irrigation and greenhouse projects as well as landscape and mining irrigation solutions supported by engineering, project management and financing services. Orbia Netafim is also leading the way in digital farming, irrigation and fertigation through integrating real-time monitoring, analysis and automated control into one state-of-the-art system. With 33 subsidiaries, 19 manufacturing plants, 2 recycling plants and more than 4,500 employees worldwide, Orbia Netafim delivers innovative, tailor-made irrigation and fertigation solutions to millions of farmers, allowing smallholders to large-scale agricultural producers and investors in over 100 countries to grow more with less™.
To learn more, visit: netafim.com.
Media Contact
Adi Ishay
Communications Manager
Orbia Precision Agriculture (Netafim)
adi.ishay@netafim.orbia.com
Katie Hogue
PR and Media Manager, Orbia
katherine.hogue@orbia.com
+1 (224) 496-0568
