From automation to robotics in agriculture, Circular water solutions promoted in Slovenia
Link Copied!Article written by dr. Andreja Žibrat Gašparič, Agricultural Institute of Slovenia
In March 2025. The Agricultural Institute of Slovenia (KIS) organised the demonstration and educational event “From automation to robotics in agriculture” at the Infrastructure Center Ptuj in north-eastern Slovenia, where the CircSyst Demo 2 site is located.
The event brought together farmers, agricultural advisors, students, policy-makers, and professionals from the agricultural business sector to explore innovations in agricultural technology and sustainability.
The aim of the event was to promote technological advances — from automation tools to robotics — and to show how digitalisation and lifelong learning can improve productivity and resource efficiency in agriculture. The results of national and EU projects on precision fertilisation, digital tools and farmer training were presented.
At the event, Uroš Kavkler (KIS) presented the CircSyst objectives of developing circular water solutions in agriculture and explained the experiment currently running in Demo 2 in Ptuj. In the experiment, four crops — strawberries, peppers, onions and carrots — are grown in greenhouses that are irrigated with a system equipped with three water purification methods developed by project partner Komunala Ptuj. This system is applied uniformly in all tunnels, with the same water source irrigating the plots over two production seasons as part of a planned crop rotation.
The event provided a valuable opportunity to communicate with farmers and other stakeholders directly, and to raise awareness of the importance of circular water approaches.
