The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff is collaborating with Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., to expand research, outreach and workforce development opportunities in digital agriculture, according to Shahidul Islam, professor and director of the Regulatory Science Center at UAPB.
The project is led by Islam and co-principal investigator Adedeji Adetunji, assistant professor for UAPB’s Department of Agriculture. At Cornell, the partnership is based in the Cornell Agricultural Systems Testbed and Demonstration Site (CAST), a Farm of the Future initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
According to Islam, CAST transforms Cornell’s commercial-scale crop and dairy farms into a living laboratory for climate-smart, data-driven agriculture. The initiative integrates and evaluates sensors, robotics, analytics and decision-support tools across three sites — the Cornell University Ruminant Center, Musgrave Research Farm and the Teaching Dairy Barn — to provide real-world testing in partnership with farmers and industry collaborators.
“This collaboration connects classroom learning with hands-on technology evaluation in CAST’s farm environments,” Islam said. “Together, UAPB and Cornell are building pathways for students and producers to engage with cutting-edge agricultural research.”
Joint activities include the development of a virtual introductory digital agriculture course tailored for students, a summer research and Extension internship program at CAST for UAPB participants, and outreach efforts to demonstrate data-driven technologies to diverse, small and limited-resource farms.
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As part of the CAST Farm of the Future Summer Internship Program, five UAPB students from the Department of Agriculture participated in a six-week internship at Cornell this summer. Participants included agricultural engineering majors Charles Boyd and Diata Walton, as well as animal science majors Addyson Booker, Nia Sims and De Jeanea Jackson.
The students presented posters at Cornell, shared their research with peers and faculty at UAPB and participated in a panel discussion titled “Digital Agriculture: The Present and the Future of Food Sustainability.”
The panel focused on challenges and opportunities in applying digital agriculture across multiple disciplines.
Islam said the initiative is guided by four pillars — innovation in technologies and practices, data integration, analytics and decision support, and impact assessment.
“The overarching goal is to improve productivity, animal health, environmental sustainability and farm profitability while preparing the next generation of digital agriculture leaders,” he said.
Will Hehemann is an extension specialist of communications at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff School of Agriculture, Fisheries and Human Sciences.