A newly signed agreement between Olds College and Saskatchewan Polytechnic will help advance applied research opportunities across the agriculture industry, says Dr. Jason Dewling.
"There are three main areas that will be the focus of our efforts as we start this new relationship," Dewling, the Olds College vice-president for academic and research, told the Gazette. "One is in agricultural training and the area of smart-intelligent agriculture. Olds College certainly has a long history in agriculture training.
"Sask Poly does not have the same variety of agricultural training but they do have quite a bit of training in the technology.
"So by partnering with them they can leverage our experience in agriculture and we can leverage their experience in IT without duplicating resources."
Asked to explain what is meant by smart-intelligent agriculture, he said, "When you think about smart agriculture it is really how we are going to use technology to advance agriculture in the future.
"Some of it includes sensor technology, some of it is soil science, some of it would be how we use drones or GPS systems, how we maximize yield and turn it into value added. It's all the technology components that apply to agriculture.
"They (Sask Poly) will definitely be able to help us on the IT side and we can certainly provide the applied environment to be able to test, pilot and incubate all these concepts."
The second main focus of the partnership will be in the area of applied research and company development support, he said.
"So combined we have quite a Rolodex of people that are involved in agri-business type industries and we believe that we are well positioned between both of us to provide opportunities to both applied research and to provide information for companies so they can commercialize products that will help agriculture," he said.
"When we work with industry we don't try to secure intellectual property for the most part. We want that knowledge to go back to the industry. We can provide a controlled environment for them to be able to do their work, whether it's crop files or technologies or field studies or lab studies."
The third focus will be the "formation of an agricultural super cluster in Western Canada," he said.
"Leveraging the influence of both institutions along with industry partners, we essentially want to build a hub for agriculture," he said. "This is the first sort of agreement in place that will contribute to that."
Olds College will be making a major announcement related to the new hub at the March 24 Olds College gala, he said.
Dr. Tom Thompson, Olds College president, said the new agreement is a good step forward for the school and its students.
"We will create dynamic learning opportunities for our students, while working with industry and community partners to create innovative solutions through applied research," Thompson said in a release announcing the MOU signing.
"This agreement with Sask Polytech will leverage each institution's strengths for the benefit of Western Canada.
"One of the outcomes of the MOU is for the schools to collaborate with other post-secondary institutions to discover new ways to enable employers and industry to meet the challenge of becoming a leader in the developing field of smart-intelligent agriculture."
Smart-intelligent agriculture involves the technologies needed for practical and efficient application of data in agricultural production and how the data collected is used in a practical way, he said.
"The agricultural sector is well placed to leverage big-data technology and many companies are now contributing to its success," he said.
