Researchers at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences have been awarded nearly $4 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to develop a climate-smart “4-D Farm.”
The project, The Digital and Data-Driven Demonstration Farm (4-D Farm): Juxtaposition of Climate-Smart and Circular Innovations for Future Farm Economies, is part of NIFA’s investment in regional innovations for climate-smart agriculture and forestry.
Led by principal investigator Glen Rains, the project involves an interdisciplinary team across CAES, including researchers in sustainable precision agriculture, data science, livestock management, grass and forage management, crop production, UGA Extension and education programming, and autonomous and intelligent rover research and development. Two sub awards were given to Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) and Clemson University. The project also includes a contracted social economist from Kansas State University.
Leveraging data science for farm resilience
The long-term goal of the 4-D Farm is to develop climate-smart production systems leveraging renewable energy, automation, intelligence and human capital to meet the required food and fiber needs of a burgeoning world population.
Executed across multiple sites in Georgia, the 4-D Farm will feature a 90-acre Demonstrating Applied Technology in Agriculture (DATA) farm on the ABAC campus in Tifton. With roughly half the acreage under a center-pivot irrigation system, researchers will rotate what is in the field to test various management systems.
“We’ll start by adopting things we already know and then adapting them, whether it is precision planting and irrigation or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). It’ll be a challenge, but we hope to be able to show what type of management programs pay off if producers want to integrate precision ag into their farming,” said…
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