Blog

AALP Class 20 recently completed seminar 5 - with three days in London and the surrounding area.  We started out at the Outdoor Farm Show in Woodstock at the 40^th anniversary of the Advanced Agricultural Leadership Program, celebrating 40 years of agriculture leadership development, connecting with AALP alumni and supporters, and enjoying the stories and misadventures of AALP journeys throughout the years.  It was truly a wonderful afternoon and eye opening to realize just how big our network of AALP grads is after 40 years!

From there we shifted to London for our seminar and spent time learning about various topics including communications strategies with Victoria Berry, Grain Farmers of Ontario communication director, who helped us deal with challenging agricultural questions for which we often don't have all the answers.  We were fortunate to have an opportunity to meet with Rob Flack, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness, and Lauren Benoit, 2024 Nuffield Scholar and Bayer CropScience agronomist, to learn more about both challenges and opportunities that exist within agriculture today.

What struck me most as a common thread this seminar was the increasing use of technology in all sorts of ways.  We live in a technological world, with robotics and automation and now artificial intelligence adding to our abilities.  Through the class and tours, various examples of how technology is being used to improve our work was evident:

• At Grey Ridge Egg Grading Station, where a warehouse full of robots stack, unstack, clean, size, sort and pack eggs into appropriate cartons of all sizes, reducing human injury and fatigue and completing repetitive tasks efficiently and more accurately that we ever could.  Bringing us fresher and higher quality eggs than ever before.
• At Veldman’s layer barn, where similar egg technology is used to sort and stack eggs for transport, and mechanization makes collecting eggs and removing manure easier - keeping the birds healthier and happier.
• In emerging agriculture solutions including vertical farming with an Agrotunnel by Food Security Structures.  Tightly managing the crop, energy usage and water and nutrients needed through smart automation - bringing us food with the promise of a net-zero or reduced environmental impact in the future.
• And in our Issues Analysis Projects, with an example of an AI generated podcast, complete with scripting, multiple speakers carrying on a conversation, and background music all created using AI in far less time than a traditional recording process.

 We are surrounded by technology - and the examples mentioned are just scratching the surface.  The combination of fast computing connected to always-on networks, and highly accurate GPS location data makes things possible today in agriculture that couldn’t have been conceived of just a few decades ago.  And the pace of change continues to accelerate as we embrace newer ideas and adopt newer technology.  As our world continues to grow and a smaller percentage of our population is involved in agriculture, we will use this technology to bring about greater efficiency, better yields, and higher quality food.  Agriculture keeps moving forward, and AALP Class 20 gets to be a part of it - now and into the future.  Leading from wherever life finds us.