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On-Farm Experimentation Community
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#OFE2021
The First Conference on Farmer-Centric On-farm Experimentation — Digital Tools for a Scalable Transformative Pathway was held on October 13th-15th 2021 in Montpellier, France.
Purpose
- To share global experience of farmer-centric On-Farm Experimentation (OFE)
- To explain the innovation process that OFE represents, as an alternative to the top-down, researcher-directed process that currently predominates
- How OFE creates value to sustain itself;
- The alternative innovation pathways of the OFE bottom-up processes;
- How OFE offers a pathway for valorising digital technologies in agriculture; and
- The interplay between OFE practice on the ground and supporting policy and investment.
Preparatory workshop-webinars
The Conference will be preceded by four thematic workshop webinars in May. These webinars will each be prepared by a dedicated working group.
- Value creation: through co-producing and sharing knowledge
- People and processes: avoiding the tech fallacy, building ecosystem innovation platforms
- Data and analytics: large-scale agronomy, experimental designs, aggregation, metadata
- Policy linkages: to support innovation, and for data governance
Format of the Conference
- Conference presentation format for 100–150 delegates to share information around four themes. See the program here. In addition, 200 delegates attending by video-streaming are expected.
- Two-day (13th-14th of October) information sharing from global specialists about current developments in digital agriculture, value creation, innovation systems and policy landscapes surrounding OFE. French/English translation.
- Third day (15th of October) field tour and focus session to pull down key messages and critical requirements for policy change to support farmer-centric digital transformation.
Expected outputs
- Framework for OFE that identifies transformational value processes; organisation for social capitalisation; functions for digital technologies and linkages to policy, legislation and investment
- Technical summary for policy-makers
- Network of specialists to execute further steps in OFE development
Convenors
- Dr. Véronique Bellon Maurel, INRAE, Director of #DigitAg, France
- Dr. Nicolas Tremblay, International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA), Canada
- Prof. Simon Cook, Murdoch University, Centre for Digital Agriculture, Australia
Supported by
The conference is supported by the OECD Co-operative Research Program (CRP) “Biological resource management for sustainable agricultural systems,” under Theme 3 — Transformational technologies and innovation. It is organised by INRAE Montpellier and the On-Farm Experimentation Community (OFE-C) of the International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA).
Support is also provided by Agropolis Foundation, Occitanie Region, MUSE (Montpellier University of Excellence), Agreenium, #Digitag, RMT NAEXUS, RMT Modelia and Occitanum.
The International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA) is a non-profit professional scientific organization.
The mission of ISPA is to advance the science of precision agriculture globally.
Contact ofec@ispag.org or visit www.ispag.org for more about the Society