By TIM ALEXANDER

Illinois Correspondent

URBANA, Ill. — As co-director of the University of Illinois’ new Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA), Matt Hudson is excited that agricultural producers and researchers will come together with industry to innovate on technologies that will transform modern agriculture.

He just can’t talk too much about those partnerships yet.

“We are probably not ready to announce anything because I don’t think we’ve signed anything,” said Hudson, a professor in the U of I Department of Crop Sciences, of potential industry partners for the CDA; however, it has planned multiple partnerships with companies across the agriculture and computing industries.

“We’ve certainly got several companies that are very interested in digital ag, some of them quite big. We can announce that we are bringing, under digital ag, a number of educational programs, including K-12. We’ve also got two bachelors’ degrees that are already approved, one in computer science and crop science and one in computer science and animal science.

“The Climate Corporation has agreed to sponsor every student who comes in under the computer and crop science program,” Hudson said, adding that a new Master of Science in Digital Agriculture degree program is not quite ready to admit students.

The CDA was launched earlier this month at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA) on the U of I campus, with the goal of “seeking digital solutions to agricultural roadblocks.” He elaborated on some of the challenges the center will address and the digital tools and techniques it will employ during its initial year:

“By our definition, digital ag is anything that uses digital technology to solve ag problems, so it is a very broad definition. The main reason we are setting up this center is that traditionally, we have a very strong college of agriculture and a very strong college of engineering that is particularly strong in digital and computer technology,” he said.

“But there hasn’t been as much collaborative research between the two as we might have been able to do, and digital ag seems like the perfect area. We’ve got a lot of enthusiasm from both (colleges) in pursuing ag problems with digital technology.”

Projects are already underway and solutions are being sought by students and researchers at the CDA, Hudson continued. “These problems range from those you might imagine, such as crop monitoring and remote sensing, to automated vehicles and robotics in agriculture.

“There are also (programs) related to animal health and welfare, and we have a program on detecting counterfeit fertilizer in Africa – there is a big problem there with people selling fake fertilizer, so we are using machine learning applications on cell phones to allow African farmers to detect which bags are counterfeit.

“So, we’ve got a lot of collaborations with extensions and universities, Illinois companies, and K-12 education in the state, but we’ve also got global-scale collaborations going on,” he added.

The CDA is currently setting up a “digital farm” to be located within the university’s agricultural grounds that will be operated largely autonomously, but also involve active student and researcher participation. “It will be a place for them to try out their robots or their sensors, a research facility rather than a truly autonomous farm,” said Hudson.

Co-directing the CDA is Vikram Adve, a professor in the U of I Department of Computer Science. Adve noted the CDA is a long-term endeavor that ultimately exists to help ensure a sustainable agriculture system to feed a growing world population.

“As a computer scientist, engineer, researcher, and educator, I am excited by the technical challenges that will have to be solved across a wide range of domains, and by the opportunities for collaborating with faculty and industry from diverse areas to address food, agriculture, and environmental problems crucial to society,” he said.

Hudson said anyone can go to www.digitalag.illinois.edu to read short descriptions of all currently funded programs taken on at the CDA. “I am very excited about the potential of our new center for researchers, farmers, students, and industry in Illinois and beyond,” he said.