OLDS — Attendance for the third AgSmart – Olds College’s outdoor agriculture industry exhibition – grew substantially over last year.
“It was our third edition of AgSmart, and we basically saw all elements of the event grow,” said Stacy Felkar, AgSmart co-manager.
“We were very excited to have a 40 per cent increase in attendance with almost 2,900 people,” Felkar told the Albertan during a phone interview.
The inaugural event in 2019 had 2,034 people come through, and there was an attendance of about 2,050 last year for the event’s return after being cancelled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think we’re all very happy to be able to be back together and learning in a collaborative environment,” Felkar said when asked what she might attribute to this year’s surge.
“Also, I think that the area of the industry focused on ag tech has seen so much growth – and it’s evolving and moving so quickly – that there’s a lot of interest and action there that can be focused on and everyone’s interested in checking it out,” she added.
The agriculture industry and technology expo, held Aug. 9-10, was hosted on Olds College’s Smart Farm at the campus’s south end.
“It’s basically if you took a conference and you put it out in the field,” Felkar explained, adding “our primary objective is education.”
To that end, organizers invite a wide variety of industry experts not only to share their insight and experience but also to discuss new technological developments and trends.
“There’s always new additions and features within AgSmart, just because of how quickly the industry is evolving,” she said. “Even if you’re talking to a certain company this year, where they’ll be next year can be a completely different space that they’ve evolved and grown and are looking at new ways to use their innovation…being in this space of the industry, it is constantly new content.”
There were more than 110 interactive exhibits complemented further by 50 educational sessions as well as 50 demonstrations, she said.
“The demos are everything from apps to drones to autonomous equipment, swarm robots working in the field, and everything in between,” she elaborated.
Some of the demonstrations that seemed to garner plenty of attention included an autonomous power platform presented by Raven Industries as well as new spray-management technology from Pattison Agriculture, she said.
“We demonstrated some student projects that had swarm robots going in the field,” she added, describing the use of the high-tech devices in this instance as “autonomous robots, but they’re working together in a little swarm.”
Swarms of drones can be deployed to accomplish not only tasks such as spraying, but also getting digital eyes up in the sky to improve visualization that in turn assists with more accurately mapping out land.
“We had a livestock and cropping focus on all of our content, as well as a lot of general context and some of those broader conversations from industry experts,” she added.
Helping ensure the event successfully unfolded without a hitch were shy of 60 volunteers, she said.
“We’re very grateful for the support of our exhibitors and partners and attendees and all of our volunteers and everyone who came to help put on an awesome AgSmart 2022,” she said.
Asked whether organizers intend to proceed full steam ahead for the fourth edition in 2023, she said, “Absolutely. We're already working on it.”
