A Successful Farming Innovation Day at AgroParisTech’s Experimental Farm
June 10 2022The inaugural Farming Innovation Day was held on Wednesday, May 18, at AgroParisTech’s Experimental Farm (Grignon, Yvelines department). Organized for farmers and agricultural innovation influencers in collaboration with CORTEVA Agriscience, Bioline by Invivo, and the Réussir group, the day was a chance for the 21 exhibitors to present their innovations to 300 visitors in attendance.
See you at next year’s Farming Innovation Day in 2023!
A Dedicated Agritech Think Tank
As a place where education and research are able to be directly applied—with a strong emphasis on applied research—AgroParisTech’s experimental farm has been active in the quest for farming innovation for many years. Satellite-driven tractors, drone-monitored crops, milking robots, or connected solutions for ensuring animal welfare are just a few of the innovations designed for precision agriculture developed at Grignon Farm, which also hosts Farm’InnLab—a unique collaborative space devoted to farming issues in which new interactions are created to enrich education and research.
A Look at Farm’InnLab
Farm’InnLab aims to provide scientific and technical support to farming innovators. Farm’InnLab, home to a think tank for project developers, helps projects transition from laboratories to pilot projects by developing tools and techniques for agricultural or livestock production or for monitoring and steering production processes all the way to the proof-of-concept stage or the start of manufacturing. For example, this collaborative space is where Nénufar—a ground cover system for capturing and storing slurry pit biogas to allow it to be put to use—was created.
Life-size experiments to assess agronomic and environmental performance
Grignon Farm is also where, in 2017, the experimental Trajectoire platform was launched, in partnership with institutional, agricultural, and scientific stakeholders. This experimental platform aims to explore cropping system performance to achieve more sustainable solutions. Seven cropping systems were selected for the platform and developed across a 10-hectare (25-acre) plot for at least five years. Specific equipment was also used to measure nitrate and active ingredient flows that leach into the aquifer, along with greenhouse gas emissions from the soil.
On May 18th, Farming Innovation Day was an opportunity to announce initial performance findings for the solutions explored over the past four years.