Research Technology and Information for 21st Century Agriculture

Emerging issues in agriculture
These are typical of the emerging issues that fall into the AgTech Centre’s mandate.

• Environmental impacts of agriculture operations.
• Greenhouse gases, emissions, particulates and odours.
• Manure management and application technologies.
• Composting and processing manures.
• Livestock development, on-farm processing, intensifying production to meet niche markets.
• Stewardship of resources.
• Special crops and diversification.
• Animal welfare, handling and transportation.
• Indoor air quality for worker and animal health.
• Further production efficiencies.
• New facilities, equipment, technology and their application to production systems.
• Alternative production practices.

"This shift has been a natural evolution because industry needs have driven it," says Rick Atkins, "Since the Centre became a department of Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development in 1988, we have performed more research and more development work for manufacturers. What’s happened is our base of expertise has gone beyond machinery and crop production issues to include environmental issues, livestock issues, animal welfare issues and a host of others."

Partners in research
Many of the Centre’s engineering research activities are carried out in conjunction with partners. "Partners are usually producer groups, other public research facilities such as Agri-culture and Agri-Food Canada or private companies," says Atkins. "These joint projects seek to answer key questions facing the industry." An example of an AgTech Centre partner-ship is a recent study on manure application to forages. Support for the research was supplied in part by the Canada Alberta Beef Industry Development Fund, Alberta Cattle Feeders Association, two municipalities and in-kind support in the form of tools from private industry.

"These kinds of partnerships allow us to leverage our resources to produce more useful information than we could on our own. This helps us expand our base of knowledge and more importantly, the body of knowledge available to producers," says Atkins.

New technology for new agriculture
Technology development is key to sustaining the environment as well as producer profitability. Machinery and technology represent a $2.5 billion industry and employs 10,000 people in Western Canada. In Alberta, for example, it is the number two capital investment after land purchase.

"Technology and machinery are a few of the components producers have control over with regard to managing a system and making it pay, as far as crop or livestock production goes," says Atkins.

AgTech Centre works directly with machinery and tech-nology manufacturers and sometimes with individual inventors and innovators. "We have the expertise in testing and measure-ment and that’s a crucial component for developing technology. We also have the equipment needed for that evaluation."

That expertise is recognized by some of the largest manufac-turers in the industry. The Centre has participated in projects with John Deere, Caterpillar, Ford/New Holland, Case IH, Bourgault, Flexi-coil, Gen, Morris and a number of others.

"We have no vested interest other than wanting to make whatever equipment we test, better. We’re always thinking about the end-user," says Atkins. "If we make a manufacturer more successful or help develop a better machine, it means producers will be more successful."

Information for the industry
Atkins and the staff at the AgTech Centre have a simple philosophy about the information they produce: "Information is of no use until it’s used."

In the past, the Centre has used presentations, reports, news-letters, tradeshows and personal interaction to relay information to producers and the industry. And it has an aggressive commun-ications effort as an integral part of its new mandate.