Agricultural Research Organization - Volcani Institute

Agricultural Research Organization (ARO) – Volcani Institute

Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences

The Agricultural Research Organization (ARO) – Volcani Institute is Israel's national agricultural research and development center, operating under the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. Responsible for over 70% of Israel’s agricultural innovations, ARO serves as an internationally recognized bridge between pioneering scientific discovery and practical, field-proven agricultural technology adapted to arid and semi-arid conditions.

Within ARO, the Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences focuses on maximizing resource use efficiency, safeguarding natural resources, and engineering climate-resilient agroecosystems.

Core Scientific & Technical Capabilities:

• Earth Observation & Remote Sensing: End-to-end expertise spanning proximal sensing, high-throughput UAV photogrammetry/LiDAR, and national-to-global satellite image analytics across optical, multispectral, hyperspectral, and thermal spectra.

• Precision Agriculture & Digital Farming: Development of advanced algorithmic workflows combining machine learning, physical modeling, and 3D crop reconstruction (point clouds, canopy geometry, voxel modeling) for plant phenotyping, yield prediction, and input optimization (variable-rate water and fertilizer delivery).

• Soil & Water Management: Research in soil physics, micro-irrigation management, marginal water reuse (saline and recycled wastewater), nutrient dynamics, and root-zone processes.

• Decision Support Systems (DSS): Translating raw sensor datasets into operational digital tools for farm managers, regional authorities, and policymakers.

Research Infrastructure:

ARO operates state-of-the-art agricultural research stations, lysimeter arrays, precision farming testbeds, automated greenhouses, and advanced analytical and spectral laboratories, enabling ground-truthing, sensor calibration, and stress-testing under demanding environmental conditions.

Role in Horizon Europe Consortia:

ARO brings extensive experience as a reliable research partner in EU framework programmes, bilateral international projects, and multilateral networks (including Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, and COST Actions). In Horizon Europe Cluster 6 proposals, ARO typically leads or heavily contributes to Work Packages centered on:

• Sensor integration, sensor fusion, and multi-source Earth Observation analytics

• Algorithm development for crop status monitoring, phenotyping, and carbon/water fluxes

• Rigorous field validation, trial execution, and ground-truth dataset generation

• Scaling local digital solutions into regional and national monitoring frameworks for the European Green Deal