Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

Innovations in technology, equipment, and practices have led Canada to be the world's fifth-largest exporter of agri-food products. To keep building a successful, sustainable Agri-food sector, stakeholders in Canadian agriculture must have information to build resilience when facing the uncertainties of climate change, altered weather patterns, and socio-economic shifts. Glacier FarmMedia (GFM) is expanding their already extensive involvement in knowledge dissemination in the Canadian agriculture industry by adding a functional, participatory researcher component to their Ag in Motion (AIM) trade show and their Farm Forum Event convention. This participatory research component will take place on 154 hectares (380 acres) of their event site called the Field of Excellence. AIM's expansion magnifies the communication challenge. Attendance exceeds 12,000/d across 259 hectares (640 acres). Limited connectivity is provided by a temporary cell tower and limited WIFI onsite. GFM has partnered with Saskatchewan Polytechnic (SaskPoly) to develop a scalable mobile application that employs unique and innovative ways to: 1) enhance, encourage, and promote attendee participation and knowledge transfer in the short-lived cluster and 2) address connectivity issues. Building on earlier research into a progressive mobile web application prototype (supported by NSERC Engage and Engage Plus grants), research will continue on innovative, engaging visualization while providing a framework for the integration of the current, locally-processed and cloud data including real time data from Internet of Things (IOT) devices using LoRa (Long Range) technologies. Strategies to mitigate the connectivity and bandwidth limitations on site will be evaluated for potential to address rural bandwidth issues, a key barrier to technology adoption in rural areas. The open framework for integration, processing, analysis, and visualization of data will be used as a basis for future research into an agriculture knowledge corridor which is yet another form of cluster. The corridor is meant to concentrate and bring together different agricultural sectors to link strategies in an effort to promote agricultural knowledge. Anonymous usage data will be analyzed to determine participation levels and attendee focus, to evaluate and inform best practices. Field trial data will be analyzed for effect and long term identifiable patterns and trends to be presented at the Farm Forum Event over the three-year study.