Precision ag academy debuts at Northwest
In the news
MARYVILLE, Mo. — Twenty-four high school students from Missouri and Iowa will gain hands-on experience working with the latest agriculture technologies during a Precision Agriculture Summer Academy taking place today through Thursday on the campus of Northwest Missouri State University.
The workshop is being sponsored jointly by Northwest and AgriVision Equipment Group, a John Deere farm and consumer equipment dealer with 13 locations across southern Iowa.
Sometimes referred to as satellite farming or site-specific crop management, precision agriculture is an umbrella term for concepts and practices that exploit largely computer-based technology designed to address field variability in ways that boost efficiency and increase yields.
Common precision farming techniques include global positioning system-guided tractors and harvesting implements, electromagnetic soil mapping, soil and crop data collection, aerial imagery, and crop or soil color index mapping.
Rod Barr, director of Northwest’s School of Agricultural Sciences, said the three-day workshop is designed to “expose students and agricultural educators to some of the latest technologies being utilized in agriculture today.”
With Northwest faculty and AgriVision staff acting as instructors, academy students will participate in a variety of sessions addressing GPS and auto-guidance technology, precision chemical and fertilizer application, remote sensing, and data collection management.
Students invited to the workshop hail from a number of Missouri and Iowa communities. Local participants include Kayley Lager and Nicholas Stoll of Jefferson High School, Grant Cassavaugh and Dustin Conover of Northwest Technical School, and Tad Smock of Nodaway-Holt High School.
Students were selected for the academy on the basis of applications and reference letters. All those participating have completed either their sophomore or junior year of high school and are active in FFA or 4-H.
Ag teachers from each of the schools represented will attend as well.
The academy is being offered at no cost to students through scholarships covering lodging, food, materials, supplies, and tuition.
“The world of precision agriculture is exciting, and an area in which we see tremendous growth opportunities for growers around us in the Midwest and all over the world,” said Jeremy Ostrander, AgriVision Equipment Group CEO. “We also see it as a tremendous career growth area.”
The idea for the academy grew out of a partnership established last year between Northwest and AgriVision Equipment in an effort to “enhance the profession-based experiences agriculture students receive at the university and in the region.”
Northwest’s School of Agricultural Sciences served about 600 students during the 2015-2016 school year, or approximately 10 percent of the university’s total undergraduate population.
In addition to classroom-based courses, the school offers experience-based learning programs at the 448-acre Wright Farm north of Maryville, which is home to beef, swine, dairy, and sheep herds as well as row crop, silage, and hay operations.
