Company Meetings, Mid-Year Seminar Highlight Week-Long Region Visit

Europe Region

Company Meetings, Mid-Year Seminar Highlight Week-Long Region Visit

Following a highly successful North America Mid-Year Meeting in Iowa, Brent Kemp and Jim Wilson crossed the Atlantic for a full week of meetings and networking in Europe.

AgGateway held its Europe Mid-Year Seminar at the Innovations Centrum Osnabrück, in Osnabrück, Germany, on 20 June 2024. The morning sessions included presentations on regional agritech efforts, updates on AEF’s AgIN and data sharing in smart farming contexts, AI and robotics research, and “farm data spaces” as a technical support to implementing the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.

Following the morning presentations and lunch, participants reconvened in nearby Rieste, Germany for presentations and tours of the Grimme self-propelled production plant and the NEXAT production plant. Attendees were treated to walking tours of the plant floors, highlighting assembly of sugar beet and potato harvesters, and NEXAT’s modular carrier and implement system.

The Europe Steering Committee met and confirmed that hosting two in-person meetings per year was still valuable for the members. The suggestion was made to move the dates to March/April and September/October, to minimize conflicts with internal meetings and other industry events. Co-locating with another group for one meeting was discussed, as was consideration of a day of break outs and working meetings like the North America format. Final decisions on approaches for 2025 will take place at the group’s 18 September meeting.

AgGateway would like to extend its gratitude to Johannes Sonnen, and DKE-Data, for arranging the meeting space and site visits, as well as the networking dinner the previous evening.

Brent Kemp and Jim Wilson attended these meetings and visited other Europe-based organizations to understand more about the state of data, standards, and interoperability interests there. They especially appreciated the opportunity to meet with Jene Van der Heide and Corné Kempenaar at Wageningen University; Randy Wilbrink and Edwin Tragter at Agrifirm; Sener Celik and Hanneke Burggraaff-Roos at JoinData; and Leon Ham at Lely. Each conversation deepened their appreciation for the work being done for Europe’s agribusiness sector to create, exchange, and use data and advance knowledge, efficiency, and productivity.

And of course, thank you to Conny Graumans for arranging the visits. AgGateway leadership looks forward to continuing those conversations.