The 1st International Scientific and Practical Video-Online Conference “Innovations in Education, Science and Production” was held today in NUBiP. The event united participants not only from different regions of Ukraine but also from different countries and continents – the speakers of the conference were scientists from Ukraine, Hungary, Canada. Despite the distance and difference in time, they gathered around monitors to discuss innovation in agribusiness and education.

The first speaker of the conference was Yaroslav Boyko, Candidate of Agricultural Sciences, SEO of AgriLab – a company with experience in implementation of innovative solutions both in production and in education. Yaroslav Boyko told about new trends in agribusiness and the effectiveness of various technologies of precision agriculture: “The combination of features of the technological cycle of plant development and information technology in order to increase the efficiency of the use of resources gave rise to the development of precision farming. In particular, in Ukraine a large number of different elements of precision agriculture are used – from autopilot to remote monitoring systems for plant development. But in order to satisfy farmers’ expectations, it is necessary to implement precision agriculture systematically. And one of the most urgent issues to be solved for this is staffing. In Ukraine there is no university, no department that would train specialists in precision agriculture. And as a result, there are no places to implement and support innovative solutions on the farms.”

At the same time, the interest in precision farming technologies is growing. Today, AgriLab has more than 200 customers, with more than 750,000 hectares of field analyzed. “If we analyze the final results from the introduction of precision farming technologies, then we can say the following figures: soil analysis increases resource efficiency from 10 to 27%, diagnosis of nitrogen feed using satellite monitoring data and portable laboratories can increase yields by 12%. Variable seeding rate – when different seed rates are sown in different parts of the field, depending on the field’s potential and its properties: more seeds are sown in more fertile areas – it increases the yield of corn from 5% and above. “

Also, Yaroslav Boyko presented the innovative educational project AgriStart, created on the initiative of AgriLab based on NUBiP, to the participants of the conference. Its goal is to provide students with access to modern innovative technologies and best world agronomic decisions so that after receiving not only theoretical knowledge, but also practical skills at the university, they boldly introduced precision farming in farms, increasing the efficiency and profitability of domestic producers.