A highly accurate satellite position signal is necessary for precision agriculture. For the use of steering systems in sowing or hoeing technology, for section control or section control for processing fertilizer application maps, accuracies of a few centimeters are required. To do this, the position signal that is freely available via satellites must be corrected. Until now, however, the RTK (Real Time Kinematics) signal required for this was chargeable. This will now be available free of charge from February 2021. For this purpose, an administrative agreement was concluded with the Federal Office for Metrology and Surveying (BEV), which provides the APOS (Austrian Positioning Service) signal. All you need to do is register on the homepage of the Austrian Chamber of Agriculture (www.lko.at - available in German only).
A further recommendation for action by the platform “Digitization in Agriculture” was thus implemented. Measures for digitization in agriculture have been discussed in the platform since 2017 under the direction of Heinrich Prankl. The result was summarized in a report and published. The extensive preparatory measures for the implementation of the administrative agreement were carried out in cooperation between Franz Handler (Francisco Josephinum) and Johann Doppelbauer (Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism).