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On-Farm Experimentation Community Info No. 15
Oct 5, 2021
On-Farm Experimentation Community (OFE-C) of the International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA)
 
Updated #OFE2021 Program
By registering to #OFE2021, you will have access to the full program including keynote and invited speakers. There will also be 19 E-presentations selected for the plenaries on top of 67 e-presentations out of 86 submissions (48 video recordings, 9 slide sets, 29 papers).
 
Register now to #OFE2021
Register now for a virtual attendance and no later than October 8. Discounts are available for ISPA members, students, attendees from low and middle-income countries, non-profit organizations, farmers, and farmer organizations.
 
Recordings of the #OFE2021 Webinar Series are Available
The four OFE2021 webinars recordings are now available at https://www.ispag.org/Events/OFE
  1. Value Creation. OFE creates value for varied stakeholders, value is shared, and scientific disciplines can contribute. May 10, 2021.
  2. People and Processes. People are the real key to digital transformation. Transformation occurs when individual changes scale up through their networks and their organizations. May 12, 2021.
  3. Data and Analytics. Appropriate procedures and well-targeted analytics can be deployed to exploit the valuable data and metadata collected on the farm. May 17, 2021.
  4. Policy Linkages. Currently, initiatives around OFE are happening in spite of funding mechanisms, career paths and norms favoring traditional experimentation. Harnessing the transformational potential of OFE for agricultural sciences and innovation requires more strategic institutional alignment. May 19, 2021.
 
 
Once Upon a Time, the History of PA and OFE
Dr. David Charles, retired from Nottingham University in the UK is passionate with the history of agriculture. Here are two excerpts of what you can find in Dr. Charles short paper on the ISPA website.
  • Early Precision Agriculture: In the 6th century A.D. Pope Gregory and Archbishop Augustine organised England on a system of parishes. Within these parishes there were usually three large communal fields divided into strips. Village families held randomised replicated strips in the three fields with the intention of giving them all fair shares of good and bad land.
  • Early On-Farm Experimentations: Thomas Coke of Holkham Hall, Norfolk (1754–1842) held what became known as the Holkham Sheep Shearings, at which he exchanged information with his tenants as they explored and experimented with the new crop rotations which had been evolving since the work of Townshend (1674–1738).
 

Should you have something to share with the Community or the Community leaders, let us know here.

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