A2.5    AGRICULTURE RESEARCH AND TESTING 

 

Envaserv Research Consult can assist your company or organisation to perform testing, research, certification, and inspection of your agriculture and farming activities, products, standards, specifications including:

A2.5.1    Precision Agriculture 

We are equipped with state-of-the art equipment and technology for in-situ and off-site analysis of agriculture, its produce/products and the environment in context (farmlands). This modern equipment involves the use of information technology to achieve a site specific management and variability within the various agricultural fields. However, the precision agriculture equipment and software provide a site-specific basis to reduce waste, to increase profit in the farming industry, effective maintenance of the quality of the environment and improve the use-efficiency of agricultural inputs including fertiliser application.

We can provide precision agricultural research services in:

• A. Data collection including;
• B. identifying geographical locations of sampling areas using remote sensing and GIS 
• C.   soil sampling
• D.   pest scanting
• E.   yield monitoring
• F.    soil moisture and crop growth monitoring
• G.   Variability analysis of soil and crop characteristics.
• H.    Effective and precise management decisions
• I.    Best farming practices with regards to variable rates of pesticide application, irrigation, fertiliser application and seeding/planting.

A2.5.2     Agro Bioterrorism Response Service 

We specialise in concrete ways to prevent and respond to the deliberate and unintentional release of biological agents and toxic substances and their adverse effects on plants, animals, humans and the environment at large. We tackle both the point and non-point possible delivery sources of the toxic and biological agents from vectors or sprayers to issues of inversion and dilution and highly modified crop duster / rooftop dispersion.

Generally, our Prevention and Response procedures are categorised into;

• i. Bio and food security Preparedness; Co-ordination with local, regional agencies, private and government laboratories, agriculture and food industries.
• ii. Domestic security; improving information, intelligence and technology capability, enhancing public health capacity and bioterrorism defences.

We further provide microbiological testing of food and animal feeding stuffs such as Clostridium, presumptive Bacillus coagulase-positive staphylococci (Staphylococcus aureus and other species) cereus, coliforms and colony-count technique.

A2.5.3    Agro Environmental Assessment 

We can conduct detailed and highest standards of agro environmental assessment on your farmlands and their immediate environment.

We employ the best international laboratory practices backed by state-of-the art equipment to deliver quality service to make reliable decision on proper agro environmental assessment. The following analysis and assessments are what we undertake at ERC;

• i. A comprehensive water quality assessment to determine the potential impacts of agriculture on surface and groundwater quality.
• ii. A frequency analysis which provides an overview of the impacts of agriculture; soil type by percentage clay, percentage slope, organic waste macro elements (NPK), and tillage practices.
• iii. An assessment method to facilitate communicating the relative impacts of management practices on agro-environmental indicators of water quality (surface run-off, soil erosion, leaching loss and nutrient loss in runoffs).

A2.5.4    Agriculture Laboratory Education 

We have specialisation trends in the agriculture industry in order to help students to have the ability to solve problems associated with scientific content. Agricultural laboratories are considered a main component of agricultural education and are well suited to provide students with opportunities to develop problem–solving skills through experiential learning. 

Our mobile agricultural laboratory provides education, which prepares students for successful careers and a lifetime of informed choices in the global agriculture, food, fibre and natural resources systems. Our agriculture laboratory education further prepares students for careers in the agricultural industry including production, financing, processing, marketing and distribution of agricultural products. 

We also develop and train leaders for the vast network of supporting careers that provide the supplies, services, management and conservation of our natural resource systems.

A2.5.5     Soil Assessment & Testing

Soils are valuable resources and critical components of the environment and economic issues. Soil assessment and data is relevant to many environmental and land management issues. ERC is equipment with the requisite expertise and equipment for soil physics/engineering and fertility research including:

• i. Physical soil properties (e.g., texture, particle size analysis etc)
• ii. Chemical properties (e.g., acidity, liming, buffering capacity, micronutrients, macronutrients, exchangeable cations, organic carbon etc)
• iii. Fertility analysis (NKP, 
• iv. Geotechnical characteristics (e.g., grain size analysis, plasticity, shear stress, permeability, compaction, Atterberg limit, bearing ratio etc)
• v. Contamination/pollution analysis (e.g., Cd, Pb, Cu, As, CN-, Zn, Cr, microbiology, BTEX)