Smart Agriculture Applied Research Program

奥兹学院智能农场（OCSF）成立于2018年，为创新者、学生和终身学习者提供了一个领先的学习环境，是一个实践学习、应用研究和产品验证的生活实验室。它也是智能互联农业技术创新、示范和扩展的场所，可以实现与盈利能力、生产力、可持续性和可追溯性相关的指标。拟议的智能农业应用研究计划的目标是解决与加拿大西部典型的大面积旱地种植系统的农业技术开发和数据利用相关的差距和障碍。这将通过建立一个真正的农业创新生态系统来实现，同时在几年的时间里，在一个领域或子领域规模上执行一系列由行业驱动但由大学主导的应用研究项目，尽可能多地考虑或控制影响作物性能的变量。应用研究计划的一个关键成果将是为农业生产者、农学家和其他利益相关者提供关于农业技术和工艺的功能和价值的独立、公正的信息。农业技术领域的当地公司和中小型企业（SME）将受益于获得主题专家、专门建立的传感器和数据收集系统网络以及及时的研究，以帮助它们率先进入市场。除了简单的演示，OCSF应用研究团队将帮助公司了解他们的技术差距，以及如何优化以最好地满足最终用户的需求。除了为企业提供技术支持外，奥兹学院还为创新者和年轻企业家提供独特的支持，为他们提供创业指导，帮助他们在商业计划开发、原型开发、产品或工艺验证的过程中找到并获得资金。

The Olds College Smart Farm (OCSF), established in 2018, provides a leading edge learning environment for innovators, students and lifelong learners and is a living lab for hands-on learning, applied research, and product validation. It is also a place for innovation, demonstration and scaling of smart connected agriculture technology, allowing the realization of metrics related to profitability, productivity, sustainability, and traceability. The goal of the proposed Smart Agriculture Applied Research Program is to address the gaps and remove roadblocks related to agriculture technology development and data utilization for broad-acre, dryland cropping systems typical in western Canada. This will be accomplished by building a true agriculture innovation ecosystem while executing a series of industry-driven but college-led applied research projects at a field or sub-field scale over several years, accounting for or controlling as many variables that affect crop performance as possible. One key outcome of the applied research program will be independent, unbiased information for agricultural producers, agronomists, and other stakeholders on the functionality and value of agriculture technologies and processes. Local companies and small to medium sized enterprises (SME's) in the agriculture technology sector will benefit from access to subject matter experts, a purpose built network of sensors and data collection systems, and timely research to help them be first to market. Going beyond simple demonstration, the OCSF applied research team will help companies understand the gaps in their technology and how to optimize to best meet the needs end-users. In addition to providing technical support to businesses, Olds College is uniquely positioned to provide support to innovators and young entrepreneurs by providing them with access to entrepreneurial coaching and helping them navigate the process to find and secure funding for business plan development, prototype development, and product or process validation.