Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture (CIDA) Seminar Series: The Double-edged Sword of Big Data in Agriculture – Sara Emery

This seminar is a hybrid event. REGISTRATION REQUIRED for Zoom: https://cornell.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYscO2trD8uH9FCMFV0a5ZbXHsNhGOaeeaT

Twenty years ago, Google’s search engine seemed like the best innovation since sliced bread. They provided a tool everyone wanted, and few were worried that since it was “free” that was an indicator that we were the product. Most of us traded privacy for convenience without a second thought. Now we are in an era of big data in agriculture. Farming is difficult and growers want to understand how they can use information to make informed decisions. As an agroecologist, I’ve embraced ecoinformatics (pest monitoring data) as an approach to reduce unnecessary pesticide use and inform the spread of invasive species. I believe in this approach and that the data integration from sensors and satellites can help us untangle complex ecological drivers of variation. I’ll discuss a few tools and projects that are in development. Big agricultural companies are interested in these data too and they provide slick apps that integrate with farmers’ existing equipment seamlessly. The downstream implications of farmer data collection by for-profit companies that don’t make the data open source are concerning. There’s a role for Land Grant and government institutions in providing the infrastructure for a different model, but the time is now.

Sara Emery quantifies the effects of climate change, land-use change and management on focal pest and predator populations in agroecosystems. She use ecoinformatics (monitoring data) to deepen our understanding of pest patterns in agriculture and to understand the potential for ecological intensification, in which agroecosystems can be managed to enhance ecosystem service benefits and decrease harmful externalities. She is deeply interested in how we can make data open-source, accessible and useful. Through her extension appointment (30%), she aim to create tools that growers can use for site-specific pest and predator predictions in order to support thriving production systems and sustainable agroecosystems.

The Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture (CIDA), a faculty led initiative focused on creating a strong voice in the emerging area of Digital Agriculture (DA), invites Sara Emery to present her research for CIDA’s monthly seminar series.

Background on the Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture:

An interdisciplinary group of Cornell University faculty began meeting in early 2017 to formulate an Initiative for Digital Agriculture, believing that Cornell is uniquely equipped to lead in this emerging arena that will benefit the public for generations. We define DA to mean the application of computational and information technologies coupled with nanotechnology, biology, systems engineering and economics to both the research and operational sides of agriculture and food production. With approximately 100 faculty from 5 Cornell colleges participating, we are collaborating with external stakeholders to shape and implement a research agenda for DA that will build a pipeline of discovery and innovations for the next 10+ years. Please contact Gabriela Cestero at [email protected] with any questions