Dutch Webinar Review
On May 6, Drew and I attended the Webinar put together by the Netherlands based FME. FME is the entrepreneurial organization for the technology industry with 2,200 members and 30 industry associations and platforms . We mobilize and connect the technology industry and society for any question or challenge to which technology is the answer.
Presenters at this webinar were Marcel van Haren of FME Agri & Food, Gabe Youtsey and Dan Holloday of UC ANR & The Vine.
There was a good turnout of industry professionals mostly from the Netherlands, California and WA state, to learn what they’ve been up to in regards to creating roadmaps and specific tracks for the Health, Social and Sustainability in the future of our food. Their efforts are addressing 7 of the UN defined sustainable development goals.
Since 2015, when the first letter of intent was signed by participating members, FME has been spearheading efforts to improve smart dairy farming and sustainable food practices. They put together a powerful partnership made up of private and public companies, as well as government and educational organizations.
Their objective is to accelerate and connect the CA, WA and Dutch ag, food and health innovation eco systems to jointly develop new solutions for the future food system.
In order to tackle such a large topic, they have divided the efforts up to the following innovation projects:
- Greenhouse of the Future
- Ag Robotics & Automation
- Livestock & Dairy Innovation
- Digital+Precision Farming
- And all of these tracks will address Food Waste Innovation
These tracks will each use proven PPP Models to roadmap “the Connected ag-food-health” systems.
It’s exciting to see that there is a strategic approach to innovating with data and AI. There seemed to be a good amount of participants who pledged to be involved with the strategic efforts to publish and define an industry lead strategy for Supply Chain Innovation.
We will be diving deeper into the track about the Orchards of the Future next Thursday.
