UGM Publishing and Publication Agency (BPP) organized an International Conference on Smart and Innovative Agriculture (ICoSIA 2020) from Wednesday (4/11) to Thursday (5/11). This event was considered a sequence event of the Universitas Gadjah Mada Annual Scientific Conferences (UASC) 2020 conference series, and this time, it was held online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Hopefully, this first ICoSIA can significantly encourage academics or other researchers to attain a greater impact in the development of science during a pandemic," said UGM Chancellor, Prof. Ir. Panut Mulyono, M.Eng., D.Eng., IPU, ASEAN Eng.
In his remarks, he explained that ICoSIA provided an ideal academic platform for researchers to present research findings and explain the latest developments in agriculture.
He also appreciated the implementation of this conference and welcomed the participants and speakers from various countries.
Some participants attended this conference came from eight countries, namely Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, Russia, and America, with 72 article titles registered to take part in ICoSIA 2020.
However, only 65 titles successfully passed the review to be presented at six different symposiums, namely: Agricultural Economics and Marketing Symposium, Big Data Analysis symposium, Environmental Management symposium, Precision Nutrition Technology symposium, Smart and Precision Farming symposium, and Sustainable Food Production Symposium.
ICoSIA 2020 also presented speakers from three countries to convey his ideas and research results in the plenary session. They are Prof. Byoung-Kwan Cho from Chungnam National University (South Korea), Prof. Yu-Pin Lin from National Taiwan University (Taiwan), Assistant Prof. Lu Na from Chiba University (Japan), and Prof. Shau-Chun Wang from National Chung Cheng University (Taiwan).
On this occasion, Lin delivered a presentation correlated to the challenges and evolution of e-Agriculture. She explained that E-Agriculture is affected by designing, developing, and implementing innovative ways to use information and communication technology to focus on agriculture.
This strategy can improve the potential for innovation in services and rational use of resources, thereby increasing business opportunities, reducing risks, and improving rural communities' livelihoods.
"Many e-agriculture fields have used technologies. This development is interrelated with technological developments," he said.
He then revealed that digital agriculture relied on data quality to collect information, enhance decision making, enable innovative services, and strengthen communication among stakeholders.
For several years until now, the role of information and communication technology has unfolded from telephones, television, radio, computers, and the internet for end-user communications to the use of sensors and data analysis.
"The quality, detail, and variety of information can improve the agricultural sector to be more efficient," he added.
Still, he explained that more data did not always mean more beneficial. Hence, according to him, when we talked about big data, we should consider and emphasize the need for reliable data.
Author: Gloria
Translator: Natasa A