The climate change manifests in longer periods of drought on one hand and extreme overflow of watercourses on the other hand. This will significantly disrupt the agriculture sector, which strongly relies on certain temperatures and precipitation levels. The farming choices and the climate will determine the water footprint of agriculture: over-exploitation of water resources is a threat to farming and the environment.
This is the origin of the LIFE HYDROSTICK project, which aims at making precision farming easy and accessible by means of demonstrating in real scale a new modular, flexible, autonomous, user-friendly (plug&connect) and customisable IoT solution allowing real-time monitoring of soil data (i.e. water content, water potential, temperature, conductivity (quality and type of mineral salts), nutrients (N,P,K), pH), to increase sustainability and productivity in the agro-industry sector.
The LIFE HYDROSTICK technology will be demonstrated in real scale, to showcase its performance and its ability to achieve substantial water savings and efficiency in the use of fertilizers and fertigation practices. It will be first validated in greenhouse, followed by a full scale demonstration in 4 pilot crops of 2 Spanish locations (Navarra, Extremadura).
The leading entity is FERNANDO SARRIA AGROTECHNOLOGIES (FSA) inventor and developer of the Hydrostick technology, and in this project it will be accompanied by AN S.Coop. (AN), which will lead the validation process and the Instituto de Agrobiotecnología (IDAB-CSIC) which will be in charge of designing and executing a validation plan for the validation of the HYDROSTICK in different fields. The methodology consists of 6 WP related not only the real scale testing, but also the technology scaling-up, dissemination and communication of results, design for replication and transferability and exploitation of project results. 5 environmental KPIs have been defined to monitor the impacts that the project aims to achieve.
Project ID
Funding period
1 August 2022 - 31 July 2025Total budget
EU contribution
Funding programme
Call for proposals
Type of action
Project contribution to Mission Soil’s:
Specific objectives
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1. Reduce land degradation relating to desertification
Not targeted -
2. Conserve and increase soil organic carbon stocks
Not targeted -
3. No net soil sealing and increase the reuse of urban soils
Not targeted -
4. Reduce soil pollution and enhance restoration
Targeted -
5. Prevent erosion
Not targeted -
6. Improve soil structure to enhance habitat quality for soil biota and crops
Partially targeted -
7. Reduce the EU global footprint on soils
Not targeted -
8. Increase soil literacy in society across Member States
Not targeted
Operational objectives
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1. Build capacities and the knowledge base for soil stewardship
Not targeted
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2. Co-create and upscale place-based innovations to improve soil health in all places
Partially targeted
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3. Develop an integrated EU soil monitoring system and track progress towards soil health
Partially targeted
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4. Engage with the soil user community and society at large
Partially targeted
Innovation hotspots
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1. Carbon farming
Not targeted
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2. Soil pollution and restoration
Targeted
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3. Soil biodiversity including the microbiome
Targeted
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4. Circular economy solutions
Not targeted
Cross-cutting dimensions
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1. Business
Targeted
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2. Digital
Targeted
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3. Territorial
Not targeted
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4. International
Not targeted
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