Damián Bover Trobat's deep love for the earth is evident in sentences like this: “I’ve always liked seeing the green of small plants in autumn, the golden colour of wheat fields once they’re ready to be harvested in July. I love looking at a melon field.” Born in Porreres, Bover is both a farmer and an inventor. His creation, Utopus – an alternative to the tractor – is close to being launched into space.
Bover and his technology are the focus of the latest episode in “The Mallorcans,” a video series by German TV journalist Sibylle Tiessen. At his farm, Son Duri near Vilafranca de Bonany, Bover cultivates using organic methods. In summer, he grows watermelons and sugar melons; in winter, it’s potatoes, aubergines, lettuce, onions, and cabbage. He also grows the traditional Mallorcan grain Blat Xeixa.
“I was lucky enough to attend a very good school, completing my A-levels and gaining access to university. It was a demanding school, one that encouraged deep thinking. One side of my youth involved very simple things like tending the fields and everything connected to it, and on the other side, education.”
Bover went on to complete multidisciplinary vocational training and worked as a computer systems technician. At the same time, he always had a passion for machinery. The constant use of tractors for soil cultivation and weed removal fascinated him, but he was also critical of the damage the wheels cause to the soil and the immense diesel consumption, which produces CO₂. So Bover set about designing a light, autonomous, and environmentally friendly machine – the Utopus.
It’s an electric ploughing device with solar panels that combines two systems: a soil-cultivation mechanism and crampons that help anchor one of the two chassis to the ground.
“If a praying mantis can grip its prey with an arm armed with spikes, then this machine will work perfectly too,” Bover says, revealing his inspiration. According to him, Utopus only requires between two and four per cent of mechanical energy to anchor itself to the ground. Its main advantage is its high scalability – the machine can be precisely adapted to the size of a farmed plot. This makes it suitable for over 30 per cent of global agricultural land, which consists of very small parcels that only Utopus can work on.
Tests on steep slopes and sandy beaches – known as granular soils – have shown the machine’s potential use beyond agriculture: in forestry, civil engineering, and even in wildfire prevention.
In 2010, Bover and his team filed a patent for Utopus in Spain, followed by patents in France, Germany, and the United States.
“We were always searching for an authority that could evaluate our invention – and we only found one five years later,” Bover recalls. “In 2016, the leading field robotics expert in the United States confirmed its suitability for agriculture and for coarse-grained environments with low gravity, such as the Moon and Mars.”
He and his team received a recommendation from US authorities to pursue two applications simultaneously: first, to establish a company that could apply for funding from space agencies, and second, to develop a prototype for agricultural use.
“The idea with solar panels and ploughing tools first took root in 2006, and after that it was completely unexpected to achieve results. After all these years, it’s an incredible joy, a privilege, to have been able to do this work,” Bover reflects.
“Ten years ago, we used to say we were trying to align our activities with the planet. But a year ago, I found a categorical imperative: to live in harmony with the time, place, and the phenomena happening globally. It’s this phrase: to preserve the planet’s habitability.”
Cooperation with Tui
Support from the tourism industry: the video-project is sponsored by Europe's leading tourism group Tui and its Tui Care Foundation. The initiative was founded in 2016 with the aim of supporting sustainable projects in the destinations. The foundation focuses on the potential of the tourism sector as a driver of social development, education and prosperity. The Group promotes sustainable tourism in cooperation with local people.