Harper Adams and the International Network for Economic Research to host third annual symposium

Posted 9 September 2020

The Global Institute for Agri-Tech Economics at Harper Adams University in conjunction with International Network for Economic Research (INFER) will host their third annual symposium on the 21st & 22nd September 2020 titled ‘Agri-Tech Economics for Sustainable Futures’.

Prof Karl Behrendt, Director of the Global Institute for Agri-Tech Economics said "this symposium will continue to build evidence on the rapidly developing theme of Agri-Tech Economics and its importance to farmers, researchers and policy advisors alike, by helping to defining the role of innovative technologies in contemporary food production systems. By going online and being free of charge, this year’s format has enabled the event to become even more global, with high-level speakers and participants from all around the world. We are very excited to have the calibre of speakers we have presenting on a range of topical issues at the symposium”.

The event will open with Harper Adams University’s Vice Chancellor, Dr David Llewellyn, introducing Harper Adams University’s agri-tech focus and developments. This is followed by two special keynote presentations from Tom Bradshaw, Vice-President of the National Farmers Union (UK) and Phil Bicknell, Director of Market Intelligence at the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (UK). Tom will be talking about the farmers perspective of Agri-Tech and its contribution to meeting the challenges of contemporary agriculture, and Phil will be talking about the eternal challenge of traversing the nexus of science and technology into farm practice, and the role of Agri-Tech Economics. This will be followed by Prof James Lowenberg-DeBoer talking about a recent review on the longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on European agriculture.

In total, the symposium has 30 speakers from 17 countries. Scheduled specialist sessions, include:

• ‘Agri-Tech Economics and Sustainable Landscapes’ opening with a keynote presentation by Prof. Robert Finger from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) talking about ‘How digital innovations can lead to more sustainable agricultural systems’
• ‘Spatial Econometrics in Precision Agriculture’ opening with a keynote presentation by Prof. Dayton Lambert from Oklahoma State University (USA) talking about ‘Leveraging Yield Response Information from Dense Field Data: A Comparison of Local Regression Methods’. This session will be Chaired by Dr Xiaofei Li from Mississippi State University (USA).
• ‘Agri-Tech Adoption’ with 6 speakers covering different aspects of technology adoption by farmers, and even agriculture student’s perspectives of future technology.
• ‘Agri-Tech Economics in Nigerian farming’ which is being Chaired by Dr Tahirou Abdoulaye from CGIAR’s International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics.
• ‘Agricultural productivity and markets’ opening with a keynote presentation by Prof George Halkos from University of Thessaly (Greece) talking about ‘Modelling biodiversity: Determinants of threatened species’

For more information and to book a place at any of the free sessions visit https://agritechecon.co.uk