AI and agriculture technology: a growing field of study - Trasncript

Olds College is using innovative technology to disrupt the agriculture industry. Your future career in agriculture technology starts here.

00:00:04:22 - 00:00:20:17
[on screen]: James Benkie
Dean, Werklund School of Agriculture Technology

The opportunities in agriculture technology are in the foundations of agriculture.
The production of food, high quality, safe food.
There's always something that challenges us.
There's always something that challenges the way we think.
And it challenges our heart.

[on screen]: Werklund School of Agriculture Technology, Olds College
Olds, Alberta

00:00:22:00 - 00:00:31:10
[on screen]: Ravneet Singh
Subject Matter Expert, Olds College
Embedded Systems, Cloud Integration, and Machine Learning

This is one sector that is not going away.
Let's just take our food and where it comes from very seriously and make a career out of that.

00:00:32:00 - 00:00:57:08
[on screen]: Simon Knutson
Teacher & Developer, Olds College
Precision Agriculture & Technology

We're going to see more and more adoption of autonomy and semi autonomy.

Farms are going to need more and more people that can make this stuff work,

make the tractors drive themselves,

work with the technology that actually controls

the product application to make sure that the right amount of seed and the right amount of fertilizer is placed exactly where it needs to be,

as well as the data side where they're going to need very strong GIS skills.

00:00:57:09 - 00:01:01:09
There aren't very many people in the industry today that check all of those boxes.

00:01:01:12 - 00:01:13:17
How does a GPS operate?

What type of output data comes from a GPS module?

How do you integrate to the control system?

And then how does that control system follow, for example, an AB line in the field?

00:01:14:00 - 00:01:24:23
Industry actually brings a real life problem to the table

for our students to solve and our students have to learn how to ask the right questions.

They have to learn to engage with the right people within that problem set.

00:01:25:07 - 00:01:47:15
[on screen]: Rabnawaz Matiana
Precision Agriculture - Techgronomy Diploma

One of the projects that we have, which is called the Hyper Layer Project, it is using different datasets—

so for example, the nitrogen availability, nitrate availability in a field,

then we'll have a whole dataset for the pH in the field, organic matter in the field.

If there is a salinity problem in an area, it will not produce more even if you put in a lot of fertilizer.

Cut down on fertilizer because it is not going to result in the yield.

00:01:47:22 - 00:02:02:21
It's not very often that you get the sandbox as a student.

And in my opinion, one of the most important parts of having that sandbox is to be able

to create the opportunity for students to make mistakes, to learn from those mistakes and move forward. Prior to joining the industry.

00:02:03:07 - 00:02:19:16
[on screen]: Yevgen Mykhaylichenko
Instructor and Course developer, Olds College
Raven OMNi-POWER autonomous platform, GIS, Telematics, UAV

In a few days, I just give them the remote control of the DOT and yeah, I'm still in the truck.

And they say, “Oh, what can I do with this remote control?

It's so complicated for me— I'm not ready!”.

Come on, you’re ready.

You know how to play the PlayStation, so just imagine that it's a PlayStation or farming simulator.

00:02:19:16 - 00:02:39:11
This platform (autonmous farming platform) has three implements

as a seeder, as a sprayer, and as a spreader.

So we utilize this platform on a permanent basis during the whole season.

They need to feel that support and trust from mentors and from instructors.

00:02:39:16 - 00:03:10:11
Quite often what we're finding is the jobs that we're training students for don't exist today.

Everybody knows they need to exist.

Our students, In fact, are actually helping companies

define those jobs and that's exciting.

We are testing and validating a number of different technologies within the livestock space,

from genetics to blood sampling

to artificial intelligence and image capture,

where they can look at animal identity, heard health, feed intake,

greenhouse gas emissions, methane emissions.

00:03:17:15 - 00:03:28:01
Before I came to Canada, I'd never really been on a farm,

but a lot of potential students think that if they don't have an agriculture background,

it's not an area that they can get into.

I'm proof sitting here that you don't need it.

00:03:28:09 - 00:03:45:22
If you're thinking anything to do with food production in the near future,

the opportunities are always going to be there.

Computer science graduates, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering.

So it doesn't matter what your aptitude is, you can always find a spot in agriculture technology.

00:03:46:04 - 00:03:54:23
I would ask them to be very open minded

and that they'd be ready for one of the most incredible student experiences of their life.

00:03:54:23 - 00:04:07:21
Get here fast because they want outside

opinions and outside insights into the industry to actually grow.

And you'll get used to the snow—don't worry about it.