We invited Prof. Harold van Es from College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University and collaborated on various researches to strengthen the future collaborative research. He is a professor of Soil and Water Management. In recent years, he has engaged in development and prevalence of digital agricultural technology. Especially, his study related to the fertilizer amount estimation model in field crop cultivation contributed to the setup of an entrepreneurial venture from the University, and acquired by Yara International ASA, the world’s largest nitrogen fertilizer company in Norway at the end of 2017.
During his visit, we held a special seminarwhere he introduced the trend of digital agricultural technology in the U.S., also shared ideas related to the prevalence of agricultural technology by university-originated venture companies. Not only the students and faculty members, but a lot of people, including the farmers and employees from agribusiness firms in the area participated.
In Tokachi area, volcanic ash soil, only found in 0.8% of the total land area of the world, is widely distributed, whereas it hardly exists in the United States, where Cornell University is located. Therefore, we invited him to participate in the practical work of plant production science.In addition, he visited two agricultural fields in Obihiro and Nakasatsunai and discussed with farmers about the issues they face at the production site, as well as the new management method of agricultural land and product marketing. Although it was a short visit, with the wide range of information exchange done both in and out of campus, we expect the advancement of our future collaborative research.
