VisualNACert presents a real citrus carbon balance case at the SECH conference

VisualNACert took part in the XIII National Conference on Fruit Growing and III on Citrus Growing, organised by CITA Aragón, the Spanish Society of Horticultural Sciences (SECH) and CIHEAM Zaragoza, held from 16 to 18 June. Mercedes Iborra, co-founder and Strategy Director of the company, presented "Digital infrastructure for calculating and verifying the carbon balance in Mediterranean citrus growing", a real case built on more than a decade of agronomic field data.

The talk showed that, across all twelve seasons assessed, the cropping system analysed maintained a net positive carbon balance, calculated using the GHG Protocol and IVIA-CarbonFT methodologies and externally verified against ISO 14064-3 by AENOR. In other words: the carbon fixed by the crop itself exceeded, consistently throughout the period, the emissions associated with producing it.

The conference brought together advances in genetics, water management, plant physiology, sustainability, digitalisation and artificial intelligence, with a special tribute to José Luis Espada Carbó, a figure who contributed decisively to the development of Spanish fruit growing.

For VisualNACert, taking part confirms an idea it has argued since its beginnings as a technology partner to the agrifood industry: agricultural sustainability only becomes operational when it can be measured, traced and verified with real data rather than generic estimates. Anyone wanting to go deeper into why this is also the foundation of any agricultural artificial intelligence that genuinely works can read the full analysis in the blog article.

Sources

• CIHEAM Zaragoza — Three days sharing knowledge and experience on the future of fruit and citrus growing