The oral and poster programs are in place for the 13th ICPA. We will feature over 120 oral presentations and more than 40 poster presentations this year. The program starts Sunday, July 31st and runs through noon on Wednesday, August 3rd. ICPA will be held in conjunction with InfoAg this year which offers additional programming and an extended exhibit hall plus tours and many networking opportunities.

Online registration is open. The early registration discount ends Monday, July 18th so register now to enjoy the best rates for full and one-day registrations. 

The ISPA board has accepted a proposal for the establishment of an on On-farm data sharing (OFDS) community within ISPA. Tom Morris is the chair and Nicolas Tremblay the vice-chair. Collection of results from strip trials across many fields requires protocols for data stewardship, that is, for data reporting, sharing and archiving. Complex challenges (…) require the free flow and exchange of information, making it available when, where and how it’s most needed to support informed, coordinated and timely decision making, across multiple scales and scopes of interest. An increasing amount of useful data and information is being generated, but social and technical barriers often inhibit it from being most effectively shared, accessed and used/reused. As information intermediaries bridging boundaries of place, practice and expertise, Cooperative Extension professionals and the like are well positioned to help address these gaps, focused on advancing data and information competencies and practices addressing these barriers and promoting agri-food system innovation. [Excerpt from eXtension web page about Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) fellowship.] The first business meeting of the OFDS community will be held on Monday August 1st evening, following the poster session at the upcoming ICPA. A presentation entitled “Benefits of an On-Farm Data Sharing Community” will also be made by Tom Morris on Wednesday August 3rd at InfoAg 2016 on the same premises. The following three articles illustrate why this new ISPA community is important.

Prescriptive Planting is a system that tells farmers with great precision which seeds to plant and how to cultivate them in each patch of land. “The Economist” explains that it could be the biggest change to agriculture in rich countries since genetically modified crops. And it is proving nearly as controversial, since it raises profound questions about who owns the information on which the service is based. It also plunges stick-in-the-mud farmers into an unfamiliar world of “big data” and privacy battles.

A survey, conducted with about 400 participants the first four months of this year, showed that 77 percent of farmers are “concerned” or “extremely concerned” about the entities that can access the data generated by new precision technology on farm machinery and whether the information could be used for regulatory purposes.

Bayer bought proPlant, a developer of software for plant health diagnostics, earlier this year. Monsanto says data science and services are the "glue that holds the pieces together" of its strategy for future growth. Digital farming could spell shake-up for crop chemicals sector.

Tulane University continues to tap into the genius of worldwide entrepreneurs, researchers and inventors by offering a new and expanded $1 million Grand Challenge. The Tulane Nitrogen Reduction Challenge is seeking innovative in-field solutions that will reduce crop fertilizers and runoff, with the goal of combating hypoxia and global “Dead Zones” in the world’s lakes and oceans. Competitors have to submit an outline of their innovations by completing Registration by the August 15, 2016 registration deadline.

The N8AgriFood partnership comprises academic, industry, NGOs and farmers located in Northern Powerhouse regions and aimed at catalysing their cooperation. There are 8 universities that make a platform for partnership: Manchester, York, Leeds, Lancaster, Sheffield, Liverpool, Durham, and Newcastle. N8AgriFood Program that has been launched has three interconnected multidisciplinary themes, addressing key challenges in food security: Sustainable Food Production, Resilient Supply Chains and Improved Consumption and Health. The “Sustainable Food Production” stream will focus on precision agriculture, incl. application of fertilizers and pesticides, disease diagnostics in crops and animals, and genomics, incl., plant and livestock breeding, soil health.

This Buyer’s Guide features information to help selecting an agriculture drone. It covers everything you need to know, including the leading drones used for precision ag; popular imaging software packages & services; a short list of UAV surveyors; and the latest FAA regulations governing the use of drones in agriculture.

DuPont Pioneer is offering an incentive for growers to try the Encirca(SM) Yield Nitrogen Management Service.

Agricultural development and global food security is dependent on the streamlining of agriculture processes, and key to efficiency is the development of precision agriculture. This two-day Brazilian Agriculture Development programme is designed to facilitate discussions and partnerships that will further strengthen Brazilian agriculture on a global landscape. Partners are the Ministry of Agriculture and some of the larger exports in Brazil, including sugarcane (Unica), machinery (ABIMAQ), soybean (Aprosoja and CESB), soil (Abisolo), fruit exports (Abrafrutas), crop protection (Sindiveg), fertilisers (ANDA) and agriculture distributors (ANDAV).

The PrecisionAg Innovation meeting in August 29, 2016, Des Moines (IA) will feature “Robotics: The Next Game-Changer”, “Automating Irrigation Control”, “A Systems Approach To Precision Ag and Nitrogen Optimization”, “Inside The Consultant-Driven Precision Program”, “Employing Drip Irrigation To Boost Efficiency, Profitability” and “Nutrient Efficiency Assurance: Inside The Nutrient Star Program”.

The theme of the Geospatial World Forum is “Geospatial + Deep Learning: Shaping Smarter World”. The Geoagri segment will be held on January 24th and 25th.

The 2016 ARS will take place in Langfang City, Hebei Province, China, on September 27th and 28th, 2016. It will bring together about 230 delegates, including government officials, association leaders, remote sensing institutes, universities professors and business leaders.

ECPA 2017 will be held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in July 16-20, 2017. The website is up and you can pre-register.