Agricultural production is challenged by world food demand, the need to reduce agriculture’s environmental footprint, the shortage of labor, and unprecedented variations in weather patterns. These stressors are accelerating the pace of innovation in automation and robotic systems which have benefited from the advancements made in machine vision, sensors and actuators, artificial intelligence (AI), and human-robot interactions. This symposium will provide a space where academia, industry, funding agencies, and other stakeholders can exchange knowledge on emerging trends and identify challenges along with opportunities in the fields of automation and robotics in agriculture. The symposium will be held on Monday, 22 July 2024 in Manhattan, KS, USA, in conjunction with the 16th International Conference on Precision Agriculture.   For more information, please visit: ispag.org/Events/R_A_Symposium

In 2023 the ISPA board determined that it was time to expand upon the Precision Agriculture definition and ensure that the definition can be applied to all areas of agriculture.  The original ISPA precision agriculture definition is widely used by researchers, farmers and agribusiness. That definition is usually interpreted to focus exclusively on managing temporal and spatial variability excluding most of precision livestock farming (PLF) which deals primarily with animal-to-animal variability. The only PLF aspect which has been included in the ICPA, ECPA and in PRAG is precision grazing, which has a strong spatial component. As technology develops and crop PA moves toward individual plant management, PLF and crop PA technologies are converging. It would be beneficial for both communities to be in communication. The proposed change added “plant and animal” to the text: “Precision Agriculture is a management strategy that gathers, processes and analyzes temporal, spatial and individual plant and animal data…”
 
This proposed definition change was first distributed to Country Representatives for feedback, followed by two announcements in the ISPA monthly newsletter.  ISPA members were encouraged to submit their feedback and the board received emails from members voicing their support of the definition change.  In January 2024 the ISPA board voted to approve the Precision Agriculture definition change.

“Precision Agriculture is a management strategy that gathers, processes and analyzes temporal, spatial and individual plant and animal data and combines it with other information to support management decisions according to estimated variability for improved resource use efficiency, productivity, quality, profitability and sustainability of agricultural production.”

Revised January 2024
 

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.

 

 

 

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.