Events

Agricultural production systems are facing serious challenges of climate change and hectic extreme weather events with their consequences; the need to ensure food and nutrition security under changing conditions and to provide solar energy-based sustainable production of non-food materials. To overcome these challenges, digitalization and AI offer affordable methods and tools for data- and model-driven technological solutions both in precision operation and control and in longer-term planning. 

These actual topics were in the focus of the 4th workshop of Research Excellence and Flagship Research Group Programmes, entitled “Data and models in the era of digitalization and AI”, hosted by the Károly Róbert Campus of Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences. 

Considering the professional community of MATE, covering a wide range of disciplines, the workshop aimed to explore the actual questions about data collection, coming from IoT, sensors, drones or satellites in the diverse fields of plant cultivation, greenhouse vegetable production, livestock farming, aquaculture and farm-to-fork food chains. Regarding the exploitation of available data, the workshop focused on the up-to-date ‘a priori’, AI-based data-driven methods, and the emerging need for unified hybrid models to increase the accuracy of predictions. 

In his welcome speech, Dr. Zoltán Bujdosó, Director of the Károly Róbert Campus emphasized the importance of thematic workshops to give the opportunity for researchers to present their latest findings and discuss emerging issues with each other.

Prof. Zoltán Kovács, Programme Director of Research Excellence and Flagship Research Group Programmes underlined that participants meet 6 times this year, mostly in-person to deepen scientific discussion and multidisciplinary collaborations. He reflected on the results and continuation of the program, briefly, as well as highlighted some programme elements, will be featured in the forthcoming events. The call for proposals for the new research excellence program is planned to be announced at the end of the year.

In her introductory presentation, Dr. Mónika Varga, senior researcher, scientific advisor of Research Excellence and Flagship Research Groups Programmes gave a context to the workshop program and reflected on the topical keynote and afternoon presentations. She briefly overviewed the background, possibilities and advantages of data and models in precision agriculture, highlighting the importance of data-driven, knowledge-driven and combined hybrid models. It is also the focus topic of the currently submitted Horizon Europe proposal, coordinated by Wageningen University, where MATE participates with the development of unified, connectible ’a priori’ and hybrid models, in collaboration with WUR IT. 

Dr. Önder Babur, professor of Information Technology Group at Wageningen University, delivered a straightforward online presentation about the digital twin framework they are developing, in context of greenhouse vegetable production. In his presentation, Dr. Babur highlighted the importance of integrating physics-based and data-driven models to enable accurate, adaptive greenhouse climate control. He demonstrated how combining white-box and black-box approaches can reduce the simulation-to-reality gap and showcased three different examples about the combined utilization in the newly founded Digital Twin Lab at Wageningen University. 

Prof. Gábor Milics, professor at the Institute of Agronomy gave an insight into their developments toward MATE Data Lake. In his presentation, he introduced their general aim to develop a database that compiles scattered information on weather, soil, crops, livestock, markets, etc. into one accessible platform. This database intends to support researchers in managing their collected data and to support rationalization by reducing data gaps and duplication to ensure their efficient utilization.

Following a networking break, in the afternoon topical presentations, colleagues from the Research Excellence and Flagship Research Group Programmes gave field-specific insights into the possibilities and challenges of data collection and analysis. First, Dr. Zoltán Pék, professor at the Institute of Horticultural Sciences, delivered a presentation on the challenges of precision greenhouse-based vegetable production, illustrating also the actual best Hungarian greenhouse practices.

Dr. Miklós Szabari, associate professor at the Institute of Animal Sciences, highlighted the actual tasks and showed smart solutions in context of intensive and extensive precision livestock farming. 

The field of intensive and extensive aquaculture and the respective data and analysis related challenges were presented by Dr. Gergő Gyalog (head of Research Center of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Institute of Aquaculture) and Dr. Balázs Kucska (Institute of Aquaculture), who are also members of the Research Excellence Programme’s newest cohort.

Last, but not least Prof. László Abrankó, full professor from the Institute of Food Science and Technology, one of the Flagship Research Groups leaders gave an interesting insight from a food scientists’ viewpoint about the problems and challenges along the food chain, highlighting some actual problems where AI-related methods could support food chain organization. 

The workshop was concluded with a campus tour Guided by Dr. Zoltán Zörög, vice-director of the Campus, who provided insight into the campus's landmarks, famous lecture halls, and history. Discussions also in the breaks and after the sessions underlined the need for further multidisciplinary collaborations toward the use of available data management solutions. 

Photos by Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences