The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) has awarded a $1 million Seeding Solutions grant to Purdue University, to develop community-based approaches to converting agricultural data and algorithms into actionable tools for farmers. This project aims to provide resources to help translate this wealth of data into real-world applications in agriculture through a community-driven, open source framework.
The goal of this project is to accelerate innovation by building a community of collaborators that can apply computer science and data analysis principles to agriculture. To demonstrate the process and capabilities of open source frameworks, the research team will apply these principles to projects in food system logistics, machinery, soil mapping, farm-level meteorology, and remote sensing.
Executive Director of the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, Sally Rockey said, “The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research is proud to support research that will catalyze innovation in agriculture. This project demonstrates the critical need for collaboration to harness the power of data to solve food and agriculture challenges.”
Farmers are gathering data on millions of acres of active farmland, but much of that data is not being integrated into decision-making tools for farmers and researchers. Much of the data gathered and analyzed in public research to date are not easily accessible and the agriculture industry lacks a sufficiently trained workforce to take full advantage of the vast amounts of data available.
The research team is being led by Principal Investigator (PI) James Krogmeier, Ph.D., Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. He and his team will conduct research on this project through Purdue’s Open Agricultural Technology and Systems (OATS) Center.
This project is supported by FFAR through its Seeding Solutions grant program, which calls for bold, innovative, and potentially transformative research proposals in the Foundation’s seven Challenge Areas.