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One of the nicest things about coming to a conference such as the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture (ICPA) is meeting new friends here. Among some of the folks I’ve met are the good people at Leica Geosystems, who are sponsoring coverage of this year’s event.

In the exhibitor hall, I met up with Harlan Little, Leica’s North American Business Manager. He says for a company that works so closely with precision ag systems, it’s absolutely important to have a presence here.

“The biggest part of it is to have our booth here at the trade show to be able to make sure that all the practitioners that are here at the show, along with the researchers and different people from the industry, all have a chance to see and touch what Leica is all about from an ag standpoint.” Little says Leica is fairly new into the ag market, and a show with this caliber of attendee is a must for his company.

He says they’ve been showing off their tried and true mojoRTK system, as well as the new mojo3D, a seven-inch, touch-screen control unit, that can be used for manual or automated steering.

While there are some producers here at the conference, most of the attendees are from the research and academic fields, and Little is happy to talk to them as well.

“A symposium like this really gives that academia a little bit of what’s the real world capability out there and keeping it grounded as to what the next research piece needs to be.”

Little is glad to be able to make reconnections with some old friends, as well as all the new ones they are making.

You can hear more of my conversation with Harlan, by listening to it or downloading it from the player here: Harlan Little, Leica Geosystems

Also, check out our photo album on Flickr: ICPA Photo Album

Coverage of the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture brought to you on Agwired by When it has to be RIGHT!

The 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture (ICPA) has kicked off at the Hyatt Regency Tech Center in Denver and runs through Wednesday, July 21, 2010.

Throughout the day, hundreds of research scientists, producers, technology company representatives, equipment manufacturers, input dealers, agronomic consultants, software developers, educators, government personnel and policymakers have been pouring into the Mile High City from 40 different countries to look back on the past 20 years of precision ag innovations and to work together on the future of maximizing the potential of the world’s farmlands.

At the opening reception tonight, I caught up with Dr. Raj Khosla, the chairperson of the 10th ICPA and a professor at Colorado State University. He told me with 300-500 participants from such a wide variety of places around the world, he expects a large part of the conversation will be on the hot topic of food security.

“Precision agriculture has been mentioned as one of the solutions in meeting food security. Populations are increasing. People’s eating habits are changing.” And to meet those increasing demands, Khosla says they have to figure out how to translate some of the precision ag techniques used in the U.S. and apply them to lesser-developed countries. He says meeting the food demands of these growing countries could literally transform those societies.

“When you’re tummy is hungry is hard to listen to anything else other than feeding itself. There’s an opportunity for precision ag to contribute to lesser developed countries, smaller field sizes by coupling the technology and the [large labor markets].” He says it is just as important to use the same amount of labor to grow the larger quantities of food so precision agriculture doesn’t end up putting those workers out of jobs.

Khosla says precision agriculture is putting the right inputs in the right place, at the right time, and in the right manner. It’s a great conversation, and you can download or listen to Khosla’s interview at ICPA here: Dr. Raj Khosla

And check out the ICPA Photo Album

Coverage of the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture brought to you on Agwired by When it has to be RIGHT!