Preparations are progressing for the First International Congress and Fair of Innovation and Technologies in Agrifood, CfiaAgrotech 2023, where the most relevant actors of the national and global agri-food industry will meet.
Metropolitan Santiago will be the venue for the convention that will bring together, between October 24 and 26, renowned experts, Chileans and foreigners, who will participate in different panels to present the new trends of agrotech.
The topics to be addressed at the International Congress include “R&D needs from producers”; “Solutions from innovation and technology”; “Regenerative agriculture: Beyond sustainability”; “ESG reports and green financing”; “Logistics and distribution in the era of data science”; “IOT innovations in traceability”; “Robotics and automation in agri-food” and “Food safety, the new market trends”. The meeting will conclude with two panels: “Digitization and digital transformation in industry 5.0” and “The future of food production: new production logics”.
Among the renowned speakers who will attend the congress are Erik Pekkeriet, director of the Agri-Food Robotics Program at Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands, and Vincent Doumeziel, Senior Advisor on Oceans and Food at the United Nations Global Compact, United States.
AGRO FOOD ROBOTICS
“In this era, where we are facing climate change, biodiversity loss, overpopulation and malnutrition in urban societies, agriculture and technology have never been so relevant or so closely connected. It is like gold mining, with lots of gold, which will allow us to solve great challenges and opportunities for society. In this scenario, CfiAgrotech seems to me to be the right gold mine,” he says. Erik Pekkeriet.
The expert, who has a proven track record, has expanded the scope of robotics from greenhouse horticulture to open field to livestock, aquaculture and the food sector in the Netherlands over the past decade. Today, he leads the team of agilent of the Agro-Food Robotics Programme at Wageningen University & Research. He is also in charge of the Agro Food Robotics programme management and chairs the Agricultural Robotics thematic group at EU Robotics and the Greenhouse Horticulture thematic group at the Dutch Society for Agricultural Technology. Furthermore, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the European Machine Vision Forum and founder and coordinator of the European Digital Innovation Hub network on Robotics, called agROBOfood.
Mechanical engineer at the NHL-Stenden University of Applied Sciences in Emmen, Pekkeriet He has been involved in agriculture since 1996, when he joined the innovation management team at Greenhouse Horticulture, where he built and managed an innovation consulting department. He subsequently joined Wageningen University & Research, where he built large robots, vision sorting systems and new greenhouse production systems for farmers and machinery manufacturers.
The professional also coordinated the PicknPack project, funded by the European Union, which developed a line of flexible robotic packaging systems to assess the quality and package fresh and processed food products.
THE FUTURE IS IN SEAWEED
Vincent Doumeziel, Director of the Food Programme at the UK-based charity Lloyd's Register Foundation, is currently Senior Advisor on Oceans and Food for the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). Among his activities, he develops multinational and public-private partnerships to support ocean-based solutions, and in particular macroalgae, in order to address some of the world's challenges, such as hunger, plastic pollution, global warming and ocean acidification, among others.
Doumeziel directs the Global Seaweed Coalition, an international association established by the Lloyd's Register Foundation in partnership with the UNGC and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), to monitor the safety and sustainability of the seaweed industry.
“Seaweed, some 12,000 types in total, are the key to a range of global problems, including hunger and global warming, if only they could be given the chance to show what they can do,” said Vincent Doumeizel, in an interview published on the UN Global Compact website. He says that seaweed is the largest untapped resource we have on the planet.
Rich in protein, with proven antibiotic and antimicrobial properties, algae are a source of animal feed. They can also be used as biostimulants, to improve crop yields and enrich the soil. In addition, they have a high impact on reducing methane emissions from livestock. It was found that with just a pinch of a red algae added to ruminant feed, livestock reduced their methane emissions (a greenhouse gas linked to global warming) by up to 90%.
The expert argues that the key to a future that reaps the benefits of seaweed is to avoid making the same mistakes that were made with land-based agriculture: monoculture, genetically modified organisms and industrial agriculture. Instead, he explains, it is necessary to create regenerative and sustainable aquaculture systems.
These and other high-level exhibitors will be present at the First International Congress and Fair of Innovation and Technologies in Agrifood, CFIAgrotech, organized by FISA, of the GL events Group, and the National Society of Agriculture (SNA), with the sponsorship of important national associations of the agrifood sector and institutions that promote foreign investment in the country and the sustainable growth of the Chilean food industry. Among the entities are: ASOEX, Chilealimentos, ChileCarne, Fedefruta, Fedeleche, InvestChile, Vinos de Chile, Transforma Alimentos, BDP Foods and the National Irrigation Commission, among others.
