Digitalization in Agriculture

It is expected that the world population reaches around 10 billion in 2050. Technology development and application could be a reliable solution to increase efficiency and reduce losses in agricultural context. In this context, digital agriculture techniques and methodologies can record and analyze data as well as optimize the procedure to meet the need of gains in management and resources in the fields. So in this course different aspects of data gathering based on different sensors and engineering solutions, data analyzing using statistical techniques, pattern recognition and classification by means of machine learning techniques in agricultural context will be taught.

Social context of technical innovations in agri-food systems

Agricultural research for development strives to produce knowledge that contributes towards addressing complex global problems such as rural poverty, malnutrition among farming families, post-harvest losses and food waste, and food security. However, when the technologies that are developed do not fit the social context, they cannot be put into practice by the people who are the intended beneficiaries of the technology. Transdisciplinary research brings in societal stakeholders together with scientists of different disciplinary backgrounds early in the research process in order to take an active role in defining problems, discussing constraints and opportunities and engaging in co-experimentation in order to identify social and technical innovations that can be applied in farming systems and agri-food value chains more broadly. Identifying and characterizing the stakeholders includes for example, consideration of gender. Innovation processes can be facilitated with single stakeholder groups such as farmer’s groups, and also with multi-stakeholder groups composed of different actor groups such as farmers, traders, processors, retailers and policy-makers. Broadening the scope of the involved stakeholders points to how certain stakeholders can function to influence the room of maneuver of those working directly in a particular value chain or food system. Stakeholder involvement in innovation processes specifically tailors innovations to fit within the local context and, by functioning within existing constraints, can be put into practice more widely within the area. Transdisciplinary approaches are meant to support more relevant knowledge production practices and also function to democratize knowledge production process. Critical reflections will further connect these approaches as applied in Global North-South research collaborations. Students will learn the basics of action research, researcher-stakeholder communication and the principles of transdisciplinary approaches for agri-food systems


Agrartechnik II

Physik im Modul G05 Mathe / Physik