Agri-Informatics: applications of Big Data in delivering Food Security

3 day course

Course material will be made available online from early December and a workshop will be held on March 11 and 12 2014.

Course overview

The proposed course will introduce and develop core skills in data acquisition, data and information management, using numerical and statistical modelling approaches that form the basis of information driven sustainable agriculture. It will incorporate ground, aerial and space borne sensing and sensor techniques for predictive mapping within the context of modelling agricultural ecosystems goods and services.

A secure, reliable and sustainable food production system will increasingly rely on advanced technologies, such as real-time field sensing, model data fusion and advanced forecasting. It will need to operate effectively within new and changing environmental constraints and so will need to consider and be represented within (eco)systems goods and services models to ensure food security that is both economic and environmentally sustainable.

Course Topics

• Webinar 1 (Instructor Toby Waine) Introduction to Information Rich Agricultural Systems
• Webinar 2 (Instructor Toby Waine) Sensing and sensors in Agricultural Systems
• Webinar 3 (Instructor Tim Brewer) Spatial interactions of food production
• Webinar 4 (Instructor Steve Hallet) Data and Information Management
• Webinar 5 (Instructor Ron Corstanje) Big data: what can the past tell us about the future?
• Webinar 6 (Instructor Jim Harris) Ecological Agriculture in the Digital Age
• Webinar 7 (Instructor Ron Corstanje) Incorporating food security into Ecosystem Good and Services
• Webinar 8 (Instructor Simon Jude) Informatics- based decision making.

Course Objectives

This course is will provide students with a set of skills with which to handle, interrogate and generate valuable information from large datasets which are increasingly being generated in the agricultural sector.