Innovation Farm - Farming for Future

Together with many other partners, we have succeeded in starting a project from which students and farmers will benefit. The Innovation Farm under the slogan “Farming For Future” bundles the competencies of digitization in the field of agriculture. Aim of the Innovation Farm is to make new technologies for agriculture understandable.

 

Classic areas of agriculture and agricultural engineering are increasingly linked with information and communication technology and this will offer new opportunities in future, but also present us with new challenges. The Innovation Farm is intended to be an important link between research, development and education. The possibilities that are offered by new developments should be recognized and understood faster and better. Their use should ultimately generate a benefit for our local and diverse agriculture.

 

The Innovation Farm operates at three locations in Austria. In addition to Josephinum Research in Wieselburg, which is also in charge with the managment, there are two further locations, Raumberg-Gumpenstein and Mold. The focus of the work in Wieselburg is education, research and development in arable and grassland farming. In Raumberg-Gumpenstein the focus is on animal farming and grassland topics, whereas Mold primarily deals with topics related to arable farming.

 

The technologies or new machines are tested at the Innovation Farm sites but also used directly on farms in practice. A close cooperation and feedback from the farmers is very important in order to understand the challenges and to be able to assess them correctly.

 

Current work in Wieselburg is on site-specific cultivation, starting with soil cultivation and sowing, through fertilization to re-sowing of grassland. In addition the program includes the use of Tractor Implement Management (TIM) in a round baler, an application to optimize bale management when harvesting straw, extensive fertilization tests to improve nutrient efficiency in crop production and the use of sensor-based wildlife detection. The current projects of the Innovation Farm are presented on the website www.innovationfarm.at. (available in German only)

 

There is a professional collaboration and information exchange between the Innovation Farm locations. Synergies also arise with the company partners providing new technologies and machines. The company partners benefit from an objective and professional reporting and communication.

 

The knowledge generated by the Innovation Farm should ultimately benefit the active and future farmers. This is guaranteed by a close cooperation with the educational providers involved and the agricultural media as well as the involvement of agricultural educational institutions such as the HBLFA Francisco Josephinum and the FH bachelor's degree in "Agricultural Technology" on the Francisco Josephinum campus. The students will benefit in their training from the Innovation Farm, in which they can work with the latest technology in order to be optimally equipped for the future.

 

The Innovation Farm introduces itself ... (available in German only)