The 41st annual conference of the Society for Information Technology in Agriculture, Forestry and Food (Gesellschaft für Informatik in der Land-, Forst-, und Ernährungswirtschaft, GIL), which was held virtually for the first time, was themed "Information and Communication Technologies in Critical Times" - and registered a new record of participants.
With 260 participants, mainly from the German-speaking part of Europe, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the number of participants at the conference was higher than ever before. The virtual format, chosen for the first time due to the ongoing pandemic situation, certainly helped to attract new groups of attendees. The virtual annual conference was hosted by the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomics e.V. (ATB) in Potsdam.
From 8 to 9 March 2021, scientists and experts from business and politics met in virtual space to exchange information on the state of research in agricultural informatics and latest results. With around 80 presentations on two days, the GIL 2021 offered a wide range of topics and highlighted in particular the special challenges posed by the Corona crisis. In addition to contributions from research and practice, eleven of the "Digital Experimental Fields" funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) were presented at GIL 2021.
The central theme "Information and Communication Technologies in Critical Times" was addressed in particular by plenary lectures. With their contributions, Prof. Dr. Val Snow from the Lincoln Research Centre, New Zealand, and Prof. Dr. Theuvsen, State Secretary in the Lower Saxony Ministry of Agriculture, illuminated the topic from different perspectives. Specific challenges for the private sector were subject of a lively discussion between Dr Christa Hoffmann, 2nd Chair of GIL, and Dr Möller from GLOBALG.A.P.
A public Online Panel Discussion on the topic "Agriculture in the (Corona) crisis - how does digitalisation help?" concluded the conference. Prof. Dr. Anna Henkel (University of Passau), Jörg Migende (BayWa AG), Prof. Dr. Arno Ruckelshausen (Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences) and Prof. Dr. Barbara Sturm (ATB Potsdam) joined PD Dr. Andreas Meyer-Aurich (ATB) in the discussion.
This year, the GIL awarded the "Förderpreis Agrarinformatik" to Mr Abel Andree Barreto Alcantara (Institute for Sugar Beet Research, Göttingen) for his outstanding Master's thesis on "Detection and Quantification of Rhizoctonia solani in sugar beet from leaves and roots hyperspectral images on single plant scale".
Contact ATB: Dr. Andreas Meyer-Aurich