The 16th International Conference on Precision Agriculture is now accepting Abstracts Submit your abstract for the 16th ICPA held in Manhattan, Kansas, USA from 21-24 July 2024.    Create your abstract here.  Author instructions can be found here.    The deadline to submit your abstract is 31 October 2023.  Abstract review notices will be released on 1 February 2024.    If you have any questions, please contact info@ispag.org

Call for Nominations – Deputy Economics Community Leader
The ISPA Economics Community is now calling for nominations to take up the position of Deputy Economics Community Leader. The role would begin immediately with the successful nominee becoming the Economics Community Leader from the 2024 ICPA for a period of 2 years.
 
If you would like to nominate yourself or a colleague, please email Karl Behrendt, ISPA Economics Community Leader (kbehrendt@harper-adams.ac.uk) a short bio for consideration by the broader economics community. Nominations should be sent by 23rd April 2023.

Thank you to those who submitted a design to the ISPA Logo Competition

The ISPA Board is pleased to announce the new society logo!

A recent survey of universities and colleges showed 84 courses focused on precision agriculture or digital agriculture globally.  A database of those courses is planned to encourage the development of Precision/Digital Ag education which has been increasing in recent years.  Course titles and content varied along with the discipline teaching a course.  A majority (65) of the courses were submitted from North American universities and colleges with 8 submitted from Europe and 8 from South America.  Asia and Africa each submitted 1.  Most of the courses were undergraduate level with a majority (60) labeled as a precision agriculture course with the remaining 24 as digital agriculture.

   

While course titles varied significantly, the most frequent terms used in course titles were “Introduction” and “Precision Agriculture / Farming”. The disciplinary perspective of the courses were diverse including agronomy, agricultural engineering, ag economics, computer science with some being multidisciplinary in nature.  Of note, the University of Padova (Italy) and the University of Georgia (USA) provide a double masters degree in Sustainable Agriculture.  This collaboration showcases good example of collaboration between these international institutions.   There were no precision livestock or precision horticulture courses submitted.  However, a few course descriptions mentioned covering precision agriculture applied to crops, livestock and farm economics or business. 

As background, this course survey was conducted by ISPA prior to the 15th International Conference on Precision Agriculture with survey results highlighting the interest among members in precision agriculture education.  Member feedback also indicated they would like to see what courses were being taught at different institutions around the world.  Consequently, the society leadership decided to develop a follow-up survey asking members to submit courses being taught on precision agriculture or precision farming along with digital agriculture.  The survey asked about basic information for each course including name, description, and institution and instructor details.  Syllabus were also requested for each course. 

The collected information is being compiled and organized into an online database for presentation on the ISPA website.  Precision agriculture education is growing globally so the intent is for ISPA to maintain a current database of courses being taught for people to review.  The intent is to allow people to review course offerings to gain ideas for new courses being created while allowing the ability for instructors to connect or people interested in course to connect with an instructor.  ISPA has been asked to also build a graduate course and program database.  The ISPA plans to complete the undergraduate course database first and then consider possibly developing a database graduate level information.

 

ISPA Members can access the database at www.ispag.org/course_database you must be signed in to access this webpage.  To become an ISPA Member, please visit: www.ispag.org/membership/MembershipForm.

The course survey remains open and can be accessed at www.ispag.org/survey/Agriculture_Course_Submission.  If you know someone teaching that may have not filled the survey out, please pass long this link.  We want to keep the database up-to-date as new courses are offered.

Questions about the survey results can be directed to John Fulton, President@ispag.org or by e-mailing info@ispag.org.

Country Representatives serve to help promote ISPA by championing the ISPA mission and purpose globally, in particular, in the country they represent. ISPA is growing internationally so Country Representatives remain an important position to help ISPA best serve people, groups, governments and others, globally connecting them to science and experts.

 

Please join us in thanking ISPA Country Representative from Iran, Hossein Navid. 

 

If you are interested in becoming a Country Representative, please email info@ispag.org with your bio highlighting your experience in precision agriculture and your CV.  ISPA requires that all Country Representatives are current members of the society. To become a member, please complete the membership form.  

 

 

See the ISPA website for a complete list of events.

Do you have an event that would be of interest to our members? Send us an email to let us know.

• University of Kentucky - Research Analyst - Computational Agriculture and Environmental Sciences
• Postdoctoral Fellow – Precision Livestock Farming, University of Missouri
• Open Rank Faculty - Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture - Director, University of Georgia
• University of Nebraska-Lincoln - Extension Instructor or Open Rank Extension Educator - Water & Cropping Systems NOFRN (Statewide)
• Assistant Professor, Precision Agronomy - University of Saskatchewan (USask)
• University of Georgia - Assistant Professor - Extension Specialist Precision Agriculture Systems

Do you have a precision ag event, project, or news article that our members would be interested in? Please let us know. We post events, job opportunities, and news from members from around the globe. Email info@ispag.org or use the handy online form to submit your contribution.