Researchers meet in Lethbridge to discuss agricultural technology

Agriculture experts and researchers are in Lethbridge for a symposium, discussing how to use technology to help feed a growing world population.

Agriculture experts and researchers are in Lethbridge for the Canadian Symposium on Remote Sensing.

The use of technology in farming continues to rise with every growing season.

These innovations have helped farming to become even more efficient.

The remote sensing symposium gave the opportunity to talk about these latest advancements.

“Often people are working in silos on some of these projects, so it’s really great to get everyone together, talking about what they’re working on,” said Cassidy Rankine with Planet Labs Geomatics.

Improvements in satellite imagery have had a huge impact on efficiency.

These images allow producers to better evaluate crop health, soil moisture and more.

That data can be used to make decisions on things like irrigation, fertilization and pest control.

“There’s been a real increase in the resolution from various satellites,” said Aaron Bergman, a professor of geography, environment and geomatics at the University of Guelph.

These advancements have helped give rise to precision farming.

The practice has helped to save farmers money by only applying inputs where needed and cutting down on food waste.

All these advancements will be needed as the world population grows rapidly.

It’s expected there will be 9.7 billion people on earth by 2050.

All those extra mouths to feed mean farming will have to become even more efficient.

“Currently, agriculture occupies a lot of our land base. And it has problems, right? That we have nutrients that run off the land. It goes into our rivers, nutrient blooms. How can we minimize the inputs of those and still get the same outputs?” said Bergman.