Over the past 5 years the Industry 4.0 revolution managed to rapidly transform all major industrial sectors, including the agricultural domain where the total addressable market is expected to reach 26.8 billion by 2020. The agricultural IoT infrastructure transformation is enabling crop producers to receive status information from interconnect farms, crops, crop/field, equipment, storage and livestock. Agricultural corporations down to small family farms are now able to monitor the entire plantation ecosystem, spanning from: crop field physical parameters (temperature, light, humidity, soil moisture etc), local climatic conditions and control its irrigation, fertilisation and automation (greenhouses).
In contrast, formal Agricultural IoT training on development, installation, service, maintenance & sustainability awareness is at its infancy, especially in the EU. The masTERs course on smArt Agriculture TECHnologies (TERRATECH) project aims to develop an advanced interactive certified MSc course related to Agricultural IoT applications that will train individuals with the necessary skills & knowledge to work in the rising “Smart/Precision Agriculture” industry. The course is also formulated to stimulate transversal competences such as the increased sense of initiative & entrepreneurship. It will follow the ECTS credit standards for certification recognition across the EU.
The innovative curriculum is comprised by interactive teaching methods & partnerships with expert academic & agriculture organisations to give to the students a solid background for starting a fruitful career in the industry. The course duration is 8 months, plus a 1-month maritime (on the job) experience. In addition, in 2 mobility periods, the students & educators from one university will travel to the other and vice-versa, to participate in the large-scale laboratories, whereas a 3rd period is reserved for the agricultural on-the-job training.
University of Porto - Portugal
