Robots in the lettuce: Yuma's AgTech summit is Dec. 9-10, and early registration is free

Yuma has a pitch it likes to make to the rest of the farming world: if a piece of farm technology can survive here, with the heat, the dust and a winter harvest that feeds much of the country, it can probably survive anywhere.

In December, the region gets to make that pitch in person again.

The Desert Difference: Global AgTech Innovation Summit is Dec. 9 and 10 in Yuma, according to the Yuma Sun. It's put on by the Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture and the University of Arizona Yuma Agricultural Center, with Western Growers Association, RDO Equipment and the TriDave Foundation as partners.

What you'd see

The centerpiece is what organizers call Integrated Testbed Demonstrations: automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, sensors and connectivity working together on commercial farm fields, rather than one gadget at a time in a booth. There will also be field demonstrations, exhibitors and time to talk with the researchers and companies building this stuff.

It's aimed at growers, researchers, students, industry people and investors. If you work anywhere near Yuma agriculture, or you're a student wondering where farm jobs are heading, it's the kind of event where you see the next decade of the industry up close.

"Yuma offers something few agricultural regions can provide," Tanya Hodges, executive director of the Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture, told the Sun.

The practical part

• When: Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 9-10.
• Where: The University of Arizona Yuma Agriculture Center's SMART Farm, according to the summit's registration page.
• Cost: Free with early-bird registration through Friday, Nov. 20. Regular pricing after that hasn't been published.
• Register: DesertAgSolutions.org/desert-difference

Related reading

• Thirty-two products promise to fix salty soil. A Yuma field trial is finding out which ones earn their price.
• Most soil science was built for wetter places. A Yuma lab is studying desert ground

Photo credit

Mechanical leaf-lettuce harvest in Yuma. Photo by Jeff Vanuga, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons. Original image(NRCS_Photo_Gallery).jpg).

Sources

• Yuma Sun, Yuma to showcase next-gen ag tech at global summit, early-bird registration ends Nov. 20.
• Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture, Desert Difference registration.