Ag Innovation Leaders Explore New Ways to Expand Digital Frontiers of Smart Farming
October 14, 2019
Top global ag leaders and innovators will gather in London this month to uncover new ways of leveraging technology to solve some of the most pressing challenges facing the food system today.
The World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit, which takes place in London October 15-16, is expected to draw over 500 global agribusiness leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and food company executives. During the two-day international event, participants will share ideas and look for new strategies to speed up the adoption of ag technology tools that support smart farming, leverage AI, improve supply chain traceability, and enhance environmental sustainability.
Abe Hughes, General Manager of Trimble’s Agriculture Division, says collaborative events such as the Agri-Tech Summit are vital today, as industry leaders work to unlock new innovations that will help solve today’s urgent food system challenges.
Hughes, who will be chairing a session on October 15 on Digital Frontiers: Integrating Digital Tools for Smarter Field Systems, says that farmers, consumers, and the industry as a whole will benefit from growing collaboration among the world’s top ag-tech innovators.
Hughes heads up Trimble’s high-tech Ag Division, which is a pioneer in global positioning, connectivity, mapping, and data analytics tools. Prior to joining Trimble, he was Vice President, North America for New Holland Agriculture and Construction, where he led a successful turnaround that doubled revenues from $1 billion to $2 billion and returned the division to profitability.
During the session on Digital Frontiers, Hughes will guide a panel discussion addressing such questions as:
- What new digitally enabled tools will help us to solve some of agriculture’s biggest problems today?
- What platform solutions are being pioneered to bring holistic solutions to the farmer for disease detection, irrigation and nutrition?
- What advances are being made to make solutions smarter? What new sensors are needed and how will AI, ML and next generation 5G networks change the game for precision farming?
- How are the technology giants driving momentum in the sector? How do their solutions help fill the gaps in infrastructure and how can they enable big and small players to differentiate their services?
The global panel will include agriculture and space agency leaders from India, Austria, Germany, and Italy.
Hughes will also chair a roundtable session at 2pm on October 15 that will tackle food distribution challenges and look at new ways of building a path to market for smaller players in the ag sector.
The summit, entitled Connecting Business and Innovation for a Healthy, Sustainable Food System, will also include panel discussions and educational sessions on new trait discovery, biological crop protection, gene-editing, and robotics in ag.