Harnessing Technology for Sustainable Agriculture: Inside the CAPTE Unit

In the heart of Avignon, France, a quiet revolution in agriculture has been underway since January 2013. This revolution doesn’t involve tractors plowing fields or farmers sowing seeds but instead revolves around sensors, data, and algorithms. The CAPTE unit—short for CAPteurs (sensors) and TEledetection (remote sensing)—was established to redefine how we observe, manage, and understand agricultural ecosystems.

Bridging Science and Application

Approved by the French Ministry of Agriculture and Food, CAPTE functions as a Unité Mixte Technologique (UMT)—a collaborative platform that bridges public research and private sector innovation. Its founding members include INRA (French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment), ARVALIS (Plant Institute), and HIPHEN, a private agri-tech company. CAPTE also collaborates with ACTA, CTIFL, GEVES, ITB, and Terres Inovia, encompassing expertise from field research to practical agronomic implementation.

This diverse consortium ensures that innovations aren’t confined to the laboratory. Instead, CAPTE’s mission is deeply rooted in actionable outcomes—developing tools and methods for the efficient use of sensing technologies across various agricultural scales.

The Multifaceted Goals of CAPTE

CAPTE operates under a unifying goal: enhancing agriculture through smart sensing solutions. This involves leveraging both close-range sensors and remote sensing tools—from handheld devices and tractor-mounted systems to aerial drones and satellites.

Three primary application areas guide CAPTE’s efforts:

  1. Crop Breeding via High-Throughput Phenotyping:Developing new crop varieties requires understanding plant traits across thousands of genotypes. CAPTE employs sensor-based phenotyping to evaluate crop characteristics like biomass, leaf area, and chlorophyll content—rapidly and non-destructively—over small plots (~10 m²). This accelerates breeding programs by allowing researchers to make data-driven selections.
  2. Support for Experimental Crop Management:Agricultural research stations and farmers alike benefit from the ability to monitor field experiments quickly and accurately. CAPTE’s sensor technologies provide real-time feedback on crop growth, stress levels, and disease outbreaks, enabling better-informed decisions on irrigation, fertilization, and pest control.
  3. In-Season Field Crop Management:Real-time crop monitoring is critical for timely intervention. CAPTE integrates data from diverse sensors to deliver insights during the growing season, helping farmers optimize inputs, improve yields, and reduce environmental impact.

Technology at the Core

CAPTE does not merely deploy existing sensors—it tests, adapts, and develops new ones tailored to agricultural needs. Sensor platforms range from handheld devices used in research plots to advanced drone systems for mid-scale fields and satellites for large-scale monitoring.

One of the unit’s major technological achievements is the development of Cloverfield, a cloud-based platform that processes and manages sensor data. Cloverfield ensures seamless data integration across devices and scales, allowing users to interpret complex datasets through intuitive visualizations and predictive models.

Beyond raw data collection, CAPTE focuses heavily on algorithm development. These algorithms process sensor outputs into actionable agronomic indicators—such as biomass estimates, canopy temperature, or nitrogen status—using machine learning, statistical modeling, and image processing.

Integrating Sensors with Crop Models

A defining feature of CAPTE’s work is the integration of sensor data with crop simulation models. These models predict crop growth, development, and yield under varying environmental conditions. When coupled with real-time sensing data, they enable a holistic understanding of the field.

For example, remote sensing can detect early signs of water stress, while crop models predict how that stress might affect yield. Together, they empower farmers with foresight—offering not just diagnostics but also prescriptions.

Impact and Publications

CAPTE’s research has already made significant contributions to the scientific and agricultural communities. Two recent publications exemplify its impact:

  • “Local-scale cereal yield forecasting in Italy” explores the use of statistical, data-driven models to predict crop yields at sub-national scales. The study demonstrates how different spatial aggregations and statistical techniques influence forecasting accuracy, providing guidance for scaling these methods in Europe and beyond.
  • “Remote sensing for agricultural applications: A meta-review” synthesizes existing literature on how remote sensing supports sustainable agriculture. It highlights the dual pressures of environmental sustainability and global food security, emphasizing how sensor technology helps address both.

Toward a Digital Agricultural Future

As climate change, population growth, and environmental concerns reshape global agriculture, CAPTE stands at the frontier of digital transformation in farming. Its integrative approach—uniting field expertise, cutting-edge sensors, data science, and modeling—offers a scalable solution for the complex challenges of modern agriculture.

Whether it’s breeding more resilient crops, fine-tuning fertilizer applications, or forecasting harvests, CAPTE’s innovations are proving that smart farming isn’t a concept of the future—it’s happening now in the fields of Avignon and beyond.