From 22nd to 25th of October in Tampa, Florida, the USA was held the annual meeting of the leading experts and scientists of the agrarian field. The topic of meeting was “Managing global resources for a secure future“. The Ukraine was represented at this event by specislists of AgriLab company

Organizers of symposium – the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America. The event attracted around 4000 scientists, educators, and practitioners of farm production. They presented over 3,000 scientific annotations, 1,700 innovation studies and 80 developments. In addition to presentations and discussions on the key issues of the agrarian sector in 2017, thematic tours to the farms of Florida were held, during which the participants familiarized themselves with modern practices in agribusiness and the introduction of the latest technologies.

CLIMATE CHANGE-TOP-THEME ON THE INERNATIONAL LEVEL

“The key issues of this large-scale international event are focused on global climate change and resource management, as well as the establishment of a strategy for effective agricultural development, taking into account the natural and climatic challenges facing humanity today,” said Iaroslav Boiko, CEO of AgriLab, representative of the International Society of Precision Agriculture. Climatic consequences for agriculture are the result of the interaction of climate change with the vulnerability or positive impact of natural and human resource management systems. The sessions described climate change and associated extreme events (such as heat waves, droughts, extreme rainfall, wind erosion, etc.) on terrestrial ecosystems and represented adaptive solutions (genetics, covert crops, farming technologies), or different models for implementation of long-term strategies for adaptation and mitigation “.

PRECISION AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT

In addition, as noted Iaroslav Boiko, another important topic discussed at the conference was the development of modern innovative technologies, including precision agriculture in developing countries, as an important aspect of their food security: “In Ukraine, though slowly, but there are companies that begin systematically implement precision agriculture. Increasing the resources cost makes agrarians to think about optimizing their use, and the increasing in the cost of land lease over time will significantly accelerate the process of implementing precise technologies. “ At the same time, in the USA, precision farming technologies become commonly accepted rules for agribusiness. This is evidenced by the statistical data of research on the development of precision farming in the USA over the past 10 years. So over this period, the use of innovative soil sampling technologies has increased from 40% to 78% – almost 2 times. Scientists have recorded more interest of farmers in the technologies of mapping – if decades ago they used 35% of farmers, now 75%. Popularity of satellite technology has grown – from 15% in 2007 to 55% in 2017 among the largest part of agricultural producers so, the number of farmers using satellite data has increased more than 4 times. To determine the conductivity of soil and the use of UAV, the scientists note that these technologies have begun to use a significant interest in 2011. Since then, and by 2017, their popularity among growers has increased from 14% to 31%. It is also worth noting that in the USA most manufacturers do soil analysis every year. While there are still agrarians in Ukraine that do not do it at all. “Analysis of the soil, estimation of its quality and field potential determination is one of the key factors of the efficiency of agro-enterprise,” said Iaroslav Boiko. American manufacturers regularly do the soil analysis, because they see its obvious result – optimizing resources and increasing the profitability of production. Our practice shows that soil analysis can increase resource efficiency up to 30%, and even more. At the same time, many Ukrainian agrarians do not analyze the soil because they consider it to be unnecessary expenditure wrongly, or they had a bad experience when the protocol received from the laboratory did not correspond to reality, and the recommendations did not work for the result. After all, for qualitative analysis, modern high-precision technologies, equipment, techniques, and qualified specialists are needed. But today and professionals in this field are in deficit and techniques are not improved and technical support laboratories in many cases do not meet international standards. During the Florida Conference, we discussed the issues of soil efficiency and it’s quality, its technical and methodological prerequisites with Ray Ward, the founder of the world-wide WARD laboratory, with which AgriLab has provided a qualitative analysis and agronomic expertise for Ukrainian agribusinesses for a long time. As a result, we have agreed to intensify cooperation in order to open access to quality soil analysis and innovative research technologies to manyUkrainian farmers as possible”.

AGRONOMIC RESEARCH

Also during the conference were presented a lot of narrow-sector researches, the practical implementation of which are necessary for the development of new technologies, in particular – precision farming. For example, an interesting experiment was conducted on the use of active and passive sensors to determine the need for nitrogen plants nutrition. The active sensors (process of shooting, data processing and norm calculation in on-line mode) included: NIR (780nm), Red Edge (730 nm), Red (670 nm). Passive sensors (post-processing data, and after-creating a fertilizer map) belonged to NIR (790nm), Red Edge (735nm), RED (660nm), Green (550nm), RGB. As s result of a study of technologies effectiveness to determine the need for nitrogen nutrition of plant, the researchers concluded that the variability of the data obtained by spectral survey of plants is much greater in passive sensors than in active ones. At the same time, data obtained from passive sensors were underestimated in terms of the index of plant growth, and accordingly the need for nitrogen nutrition was overestimated. Another interesting report was presented on the topic of inhibitors of nitrogen loss from ammonium nitrate in the soil, depending on the soil-harvesting complex and the acidity of the soil. The result of conducted study on the ammonium nitrate application was that the value of soil-absorbing complex was the most consolidated change to the forecast loss of nitrogen. The next indicator of the weight of the effect on nitrogen loss scientists called the soil pH. But the type of soil, according to researchers, is not the lesser factor on which the loss of nitrogen depends. Also, the results of the experiment showed that the loss of nitrogen using fertilizers with inhibitors NBPT + NPPT was on average 18% lower.

PERSONNEL PROBLEM GOES BEYOND UNIVERSITIES AND STATES

However, the theme of the Florida International Symposium was not limited to issues of agronomy and advanced technology. During the event, a lot of attention was paid to the problems of personnel provision of the agrarian sector. Indeed, the shortage of specialists in agronomy, soil science, agrochemistry is a problem that is felt by almost all countries of the world. The organizers of the event invited Florida students of agrarian studies from various educational institutions of the USA. New educational programs, grants for research, etc. were presented to studets. “Today’s students are those who will innovate in manufacturing tomorrow. In the United States, significant resources are allocated to the training of personnel for the agricultural sector. However, manufacturing companies do not stand aside from the educational process, – said the curator of the Ukrainian educational agri-project AgriStart. The experience of Western countries is convincing: high-quality agrarian education is possible only with the cooperation of educational institutions and business. After all, the combination of scientific theory, production practice and the availability of conditions, primarily – material, for the development of innovation initiatives and modern technologies – is something that allows the economies of developed countries to move forward. “

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF THE UKRAINIAN SCIENTIST

The pleasant moment of the international conference in Tampa (Florida) was that the Ukrainian scientist Petro Kyveryga, a graduate of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences, and now is an associate professor of the Department of Agronomy at Iowa State University, a lecturer at the Iowa Soybean Manufacturers Association and AgriLab expert received the highest recognition from the American Society of Agronomy and became a member of the Department of Biometric and Statistical Computing Societies. Summing up the conference, he remarked: “My point of view from this year’s event is a lot of good events, and presentations were held simultaneously and in one place. Several symposia and presentations on the use of precise agricultural technologies, remote sensing and simulations of cultivated plants in soil fertility management, and the efficiency and profitability of farms were conducted. Despite the fact that the use of technology over time in the United States is increasing, many industry and university experts have discussed ways of better partnership between farmers, public and private institutions to increase the value of these technologies to address production and environmental issues. Some discussions were aimed at improving the decision-making process through extensive data analytics and various private and commercial databases, tools and decision-making platforms. ” The international symposium of leading experts and academics in the agrarian sector, held in Tampa from October 22 to 25, gave answers to many of the theoretical and practical issues of resource management in light of global changes in the world. Now – step by the manufacturers.