CH4I - AGRIFOOD INDUSTRY
The Center of Competence Agroinnova of the University of Torino coordinates the sub-project 2 of the project Circular Health for Industry. Circular Health for Industry is a project funded by Compagnia San Paolo, within the programme “Obiettivo Pianeta” thanks to the “Intelligenza Artificiale, uomo e società” call. This call aimed at promoting innovative research projects bringing to the scientific progress in the artificial intelligence field and with concrete economic and social implications in the territory.
The project Circular Health for Industry has several purposes. The new technologies and Transfer of Technology (TOT) in businesses have a central role in the project. The project is based on the concept of Circular Health. This concept, developed by Ilaria Capua, the Director of One Health Center of Excellence at theUniversity of Florida (USA), represents an evolution of the One Health concept. Circular Health aims at promoting health from different points of view, taking into account the environment, plants, animals, and human beings. In the Circular Health vision, different social parties, such as businesses, politics, and research, should cooperate synergistically to promote health, integrating different competencies. Important fields of application are the monitoring and maintenance of plant health, which influences the food and feed’s safety, and the zoonoses’ control.
In particular, in sub-project 2, there is the collaboration with Fudex. Fudex is a food company located at Settimo Torinese, wih more than 30 years of experience in the production of extruded products. The collaboration aims at implementing an end-to-end traceability system comprising all the supply chain, from the cultivation in the field of the raw materials to final products production. This traceability system will be implemented with blockchain infrastructure. The purposes are to enhance the final consumer’s awareness, and accelerate and ease the individuation of goods to be recalled because of sanitary risks. Moreover, we aim at enhancing sanitary safety and efficiency of production with the implementation of artificial intelligence algorithms.
Another industrial partner is the Vanzetti Holstein farm, located at Candiolo; its activities include bovines’ breeding, the cultivation of forage, corn, wheat, triticale for farm sustenance, and biomass production. The collaboration with Vanzetti Holstein aims at the implementation of artificial intelligence algorithms to monitor the risk of diseases in cornfields. These algorithms will be implemented, processing data collected by meteorological stations, drones with multispectral cameras, satellite images, and analysis on the field. Moreover, different irrigation systems will be compared (pivot, agripop, and surface irrigation).
The collaboration with Vanzetti Holstein includes another field of research. With the support of the Department of Veterinary Science of the University of Turin, statistical and machine learning methods will be applied to identify possible social and environmental factors influencing health, wellbeing, and the production of dairy cattle. The ultimate goal is to support the farm to increase production and to optimize the dairy cattle management. The data will be collected by the robotic milking machines and by a station monitoring the THI (Temperature Humidity Index) in the cattle shed’s micro-clime. Social interactions will be monitored with surveillance cameras and the use of artificial intelligence algorithms.
Project title: Circular Health for Industry
Project leader: University of Torino – Computer Science Department (Prof. Guido Boella)
● Period: 2021- 2023.
● Funded by: Fondazione Compagnia San Paolo
Sub-project 2
Coordinator: Center of Competence Agroinnova, University of Torino
Scientific Responsible of the sub-project: Prof. Maria Lodovica Gullino
Territorial Partners: Fudex; Vanzetti Holstein
Other Partners: Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (DISAFA), University of Turin – Department of Veterinary Science (DSV), University of Torino; Consoft sistemi; CNR-IRCRES.