Seminar: Digital Agriculture for Efficiency and Sustainability in Food Production - a Cybernetics Perspective

Speaker: Prof Tristan Perez, Queensland University of Technology
UCL Contact: Jill Saunders (Visitors from outside UCL please email in advance).
Date/Time: 02 Nov 16, 14:00 - 15:00
Venue: Marconi Room

Abstract

As digital technology starts to disrupt the agricultural sector and data becomes more readily available, there is a great opportunity for applying and developing novel decision and system theory tools to improve upon the management of agricultural processes as well as whole food-production systems. Digital Agriculture (Digital Ag) enables the use of information, extracted from purposefully collected data, to manage agricultural production systems in order to increase yield, produce quality and efficiency, and at the same time, ensure adequate levels of robustness and sustainability. In this talk, I discuss the key components of digital ag solutions and then focus on Agricultural Cybernetics. The latter takes a system view of agriculture for the analysis and design of management strategies to control, optimise and robustify agricultural production systems while exploiting the intrinsic feedback information-exchanging mechanisms. Feedback is great tool, but it is also the subject to fundamental limitations, which when not understood properly can lead to underwhelming results as well as wasting time and resources. Agricultural Cybernetics enters the Digital Ag scene by seeking to answer fundamental questions related to systems and system behaviours in relation to agri-food production.

Prof Tristan Perez

As digital technology starts to disrupt the agricultural sector and data becomes more readily available, there is a great opportunity for applying and developing novel decision and system theory tools to improve upon the management of agricultural processes as well as whole food-production systems. Digital Agriculture (Digital Ag) enables the use of information, extracted from purposefully collected data, to manage agricultural production systems in order to increase yield, produce quality and efficiency, and at the same time, ensure adequate levels of robustness and sustainability. In this talk, I discuss the key components of digital ag solutions and then focus on Agricultural Cybernetics. The latter takes a system view of agriculture for the analysis and design of management strategies to control, optimise and robustify agricultural production systems while exploiting the intrinsic feedback information-exchanging mechanisms. Feedback is great tool, but it is also the subject to fundamental limitations, which when not understood properly can lead to underwhelming results as well as wasting time and resources. Agricultural Cybernetics enters the Digital Ag scene by seeking to answer fundamental questions related to systems and system behaviours in relation to agri-food production.