PULVERIZADORES FEDE S.L.U.

Their core work

FEDE is a Spanish manufacturer of agricultural spraying equipment — their name literally translates to "FEDE Sprayers." They design and build crop protection machinery, particularly precision spraying systems for perennial crops like vineyards and orchards. Through H2020 projects, they have been integrating smart sensors, IoT connectivity, and decision-support tools into their sprayers, moving from conventional application hardware toward data-driven precision pest management. Their contribution sits at the intersection of physical machinery and digital agriculture: they bring the real-world spraying platform that other partners' algorithms and detection models need to work on.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

FEDE's H2020 journey shows a clear progression from optimizing their core hardware to digitizing it. Their earliest project H3O (2015) focused on the fundamentals — making spraying healthier for crops, the environment, and farm finances. By 2018-2019, with OPTIMA and DEMETER, they shifted toward smart systems: sensor-based disease detection, IoT interoperability, data science, and decision-support tools that make spraying intelligent rather than just efficient. This mirrors the broader agri-tech trend from mechanical optimization to digital precision agriculture.

FEDE is evolving from a traditional machinery manufacturer into a smart agri-tech equipment provider, making them a strong partner for projects needing a hardware platform to deploy digital farming solutions on.

How they like to work

FEDE coordinates when the project centers on their core spraying technology (H3O, their largest grant at €915K) and joins as a participant when the scope is broader digital agriculture or multi-crop IPM. With 80 unique partners across 20 countries from just 3 projects, they are comfortable in large European consortia — DEMETER alone was a major large-scale pilot. They function as the "equipment reality check" in consortia: the partner who ensures algorithms and sensors actually work on a real machine in a real field.

Despite only three projects, FEDE has built a remarkably broad network of 80 partners across 20 countries, driven largely by participation in the large-scale DEMETER project. Their network spans Southern and Western Europe's agricultural research and digital technology communities.

What sets them apart

FEDE occupies a rare niche: they are an actual agricultural equipment manufacturer participating in research consortia, not just a university or IT company theorizing about smart farming. This means they can take a prototype sensor, algorithm, or decision-support tool and integrate it into production-ready spraying machinery that farmers will actually use. For any consortium building a precision agriculture project, FEDE provides the critical link between lab-stage innovation and field-ready deployment on real spray equipment.

Highlights from their portfolio

• H3O
  FEDE's only coordinated project and largest grant (€915K) — a dedicated effort to optimize crop spraying for health, environmental, and economic outcomes.
• DEMETER
  A flagship large-scale IoT agriculture pilot spanning 20+ partners, marking FEDE's entry into data-driven interoperable farming systems.
• OPTIMA
  Directly combines FEDE's spraying hardware with smart disease detection and bio-based plant protection products — their most technically integrated project.