Olds College launches ‘farm of the future’

Others include installing wireless grain bin sensors, installing a wireless mesh network that will provide wi-fi to the entire farm, equipment monitoring and control for best practice precision agriculture, including the use of monitors and controls on contractor equipment to gather data.

The use of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), installing rural narrowband connectivity to ensure high quality internet connectivity, incorporating farm management software platforms that gather, store and visualize production and management data will also be used.

In addition, utilize data analytics, machine learning, and AI (Artificial Intelligence) to turn data into information, and information into knowledge while partnering with expert agronomists who will serve as agronomic coaches to help analyze the data.

“At Olds College, we believe that agriculture is a key industry to our province and country’s success,” added Cullum. “The Olds College Smart Farm creates an open environment for collaboration and research among industry and other post-secondary institutions to work together to advance the agriculture industry. Olds College has a great opportunity with our Smart Farm to facilitate engagement to address the challenges facing agriculture, in order for our ag sector to produce more while using less.”

The College also announced this week they are working to develop new programming in agriculture technology, and have partnered with Agri-trade to host a Smart Ag Expo next summer.

The Smart Ag Expo is scheduled for August 13 & 14, 2019 and will be a combination of an outdoor farm show, with hands-on technology demos, a series of conference style workshops and courses the public can register for.

by Sheldon Spackman

Olds College launches ‘farm of the future’

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