Futurist Jack Uldrich
Game-changing technology is out there for all farmers, whether or not they embrace it will determine how far they go.
St.Paul, MN (PRWEB) December 02, 2014
While having dinner the other night, one of my friends mentioned how robotic milking of cows virtually transformed her father’s and her brother’s lives as dairy farmers in Southeastern Minnesota. Gone are the days of getting up at the crack of dawn, often in below freezing weather to milk the cows. “The cows virtually milk themselves, which frees my brother and Dad up to do things they never thought they’d have time for.”
Stories like these among farmers are not uncommon these days. Agriculture is changing at an astounding pace, and global futurist Jack Uldrich has his finger on the pulse of these rapid shifts. Having previously addressed notable agricultural clients such as Novozymes, Land O' Lakes, Ag Spectrum, Mosaic, Case IH, The Christian Farmers Federation, The Iowa Institute for Cooperatives, The Agricultural Adaptation Council of Ontario, AgGateway, the California Ag Summit, Trimble Agriculture, InfoAg, the Mushroom Farmers of Canada, and the Egg Farmers of Canada, he’ll be addressing the Minnesota Dairy and the Minnesota Milk Producers Associations with his presentation, "Foresight 20/20: The Top Ten Trends Transforming Agriculture" today, December 2nd, in St. Cloud, MN at the 2014 MMPA Conference. Additionally, Uldrich will follow up his presentation with a customized breakout session entitled, "The Big AHA."
In Uldrich’s book, Foresight 20/20, written with fellow futurist Simon Anderson, he says, “On a 7,000-acre farm in California, a large combine drives itself with sub-meter accuracy and lays down fertilizer only in areas predetermined by the device’s yield mapping software that need additional nutrients. Half a world away, on a rooftop in Berlin, Germany, sits an aquaponic farm that produces both vegetables and fish. It uses the fish waste to fertilize the plants, and the plants to purify the water. Both trends, in their separate ways, foreshadow how the agriculture industry will feed the 500 million new people expected to be added to the world’s population by the end of the decade.” (For more of Uldrich's insights into future trends, read his latest article, 10 “Game Changing” Technologies Poised to Transform the World in 2015.)
In his keynote for the MMPA Conference Uldrich will discuss how exponential advances in a variety of emerging technologies, including practical advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, information management, augmented reality, robotics, RFID, "Big Data," “the Internet of Things,” wearable technologies, renewable energy sources and satellite and sensor technology will affect dairy farming in the coming years. Uldrich will also cover how social networking, biofuels and water management will transform farming in the years ahead.
The pace and scale of tomorrow’s change begs the obvious question: How do business leaders in agriculture prepare for a constantly changing future? Uldrich says, "The answer can be found in a simple acronym: AHA, which stands for Awareness, Humility and Action." His break out session following his keynote will focus on guiding his clients through a series of questions and scenarios that will help them embrace the notion of AHA.
Uldrich says, “Robotic milking is just one advance among many that will free farmers up to explore other options in their lives in the years to come. It’s an exciting time to be a futurist and help farmers see just what those options might be.”
Parties interested in learning more about Jack Uldrich, his books, his daily blog or his speaking availability are encouraged to visit his website. Media wishing to know more about these events or interviewing Jack as a futurist or trend expert can contact Amy Tomczyk at (651) 343.0660.