Location: Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory
Project Number: 3064-21600-001-008-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2022
End Date: Aug 31, 2025
Objective:
Objective 1: Partner with industry to critically evaluate novel, state-of-the-art IoT and software solutions in terms of enhancing climate-smart and precision agricultural systems. (Primarily achieved through Grand Farm and NDSU). (NP 216 C1:PS1A, PS1B; C2:PS2A, PS2B, PS2C)
Objective 2: Develop national level IoT, IT infrastructure, software cybersecurity, and data management standards that can advance the development and deployment of secure, economical, and state-of-the-art climate-smart and precision agriculture technologies. (NP 216 C1:PS1A, PS1B; C2:PS2A, PS2B, PS2C)
Objective 3: Develop national level data management pipelines that facilitates capturing, securing, integrating and appropriate sharing and leveraging of hybrid public-private data sets for enhanced research analytics and improved management decision-making. This will support stakeholder/researcher collaboration and ensure the ability to securely share appropriate management data with researchers while respecting landowner privacy concerns and advancethe precision, accuracy, and accessibility of data-driven precision agriculture decision support tools. (NP 216 C1:PS1A, PS1B; C2:PS2A, PS2B, PS2C)
Objective 4: Engage farmers, ranchers, processors, crop consultants, and industry stakeholders on new commercially available and in-development climate-smart and precision agriculture technologies and software products. This engagement will emphasize relevance to farms of all sizes including small, limited resource, and minority producers and processors. These engagements will include field days, training, and high-level support services and other innovative means of technology transfer. This objective will be led by NDSU and Grand Farm. (NP 216 C3: PS3A; PS3B, PS3C)
Approach:
This project will support the development, assessment, and deployment of high priority IoT and big data tools and analytics for agricultural systems. The result will be the development and implementation of climate-smart and precision agricultural technologies that enhance the productivity, resilience and sustainability of small, medium, and large farms, ranches, and processors in the face of our rapidly evolving challenges including climate change, extreme weather, pests and pathogens, labor shortages, and societal demands.
It is fully expected that the partnership between USDA ARS, North Dakota State University (NDSU), and Grand Farm will accelerate the development, transfer and adoption of novel and economically feasible data-driven solutions to these challenges. This partnership provides a unique opportunity to put state-of-the-art technologies into everyday practice and realize more positive impacts than ARS, NDSU, or Grand Farm could accomplish working on their own. This project is to have emphasis on advancing solutions that benefit rural communities and producers of all scales including limited-resource, minority, and veteran small farmers, ranchers, and processors.
