Opening panel: Disruptive Agriculture

The opening panel will present the topics of the day with people from industry, agtech, start-ups, innovation and research: The topics will include “true innovation” and the next generation in agriculture. The aim is to develop a robust model for sustainable food production: open-minded and in dialogue with society, industry, agriculture and research. It is about designing a holistic agricultural system that benefits farmers.

(Confirmed) Speakers

Joe Bassett
The CEO of Dawn Equipement Company as well as Underground Agriculture Inc. from Illinois will present his vision of agriculture and discuss the internal struggle between complexity and simplicity as well as the fundamental question “What is technology in agriculture?” The first panel will continue to focus on how important change is – and how we can bring value back to the farm

BioTech – Do we want to do what we can do?

Let our experts shed light on agricultural challenges, international competitiveness, trade and social acceptance: Whether new technologies such as CRISPR can contribute to greater sustainability in agriculture depends on a number of external factors: Where is it used? How does regulation differentiate between very different applications? What about consumer acceptance?

Finally, there is the question of how those trends and techniques will affect Europe and its place in the world if new technologies become standard in other countries. What are the problems that trade, producers and consumers will face? What do these groups expect from politics?

(Confirmed) Speakers

• Prof. Dr. Peter Breunig
  Part of the Farm & Food Advisory Board and host of this session. He is Professor of Marketing and Market Theory at the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences

• Prof. Dr. Dr. Urs Niggli
  Swiss agricultural scientist and pioneer of organic agriculture. He has been head of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) in Frick, Aargau since 1990

• Gerd Schonder
  Partner of BG Neuhof, an agricultural cooperation in Baden-Württemberg. In addition to arable farming, the shareholders also operate a diverse portfolio of entrepreneurial activities

Spatial Data – All eyes on me.

This session will examine different applications of satellites and drones in crop cultivation and questions the benefits of practical application for farmers, industry, agricultural policy and society, today and in the future: farmers see opportunities and potentials in new technologies to work more economically and sustainably. Do these new technologies really offer opportunities and potential to work more economically and sustainably?

(Confirmed) Speakers

• Dr. Katrin Kohler
  Host of the Big Data Session. She is a member of the Farm & Food Advisory Board. She has over 30 years of professional experience in the field of satellite imaging technologies

• Dr. Frank Paaß
  Organic farmer with a farm in Ziegendorf, a community in the Ludwigslust-Parchim district of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

New value-added networks

Following our focus “From field to plate”, this panel is dedicated to new value creation networks. Cooperatives, farmers who leave out the middle man by agreeing on B2B-trading deals, companies who focus on regional supply chains. Not only in Germany farmers and firms are trying out different business models to be, among other things, more sustainable and/or cost efficient.

Discuss with the WWF and farmers what future value chains can look like that might generate more added value in rural areas. Who are the right or/and the new partners who can implement the economic requirements from field to plate?

(Confirmed) Speakers

• Heike Zeller
  Host of the session and founder of aHEU, a consulting firm for regional marketing strategies

• Rolf Sommer
  Head of the WWF’s Department of Agriculture and Land Use Change since 2019

• Prof. Dr. Thomas Herlitzius
  Acting Director of the Institute for Natural Product Technology at TU Dresden and bundles competences along the value chain

• Georg Mayerhofer
  Farmer of the year 2017 and part of the Farm & Food Advisory Board

• Dr. Julia Köhn
  Founder and managing partner of pielers.de, the online farmer’s market

Regenerative Agriculture

“We are all talking about sustainable agriculture, but sustainable can also mean sustainably wrong. The difference in renewable agriculture is that we want to improve and not stay on the status quo.” – says farmer Michael Reber in an interview with Farm & Food. The session will discuss what opportunities this branch offers and whether it can provide answers to the essential questions in agriculture.

(Confirmed) Speakers

• Benedikt Bösel
  Farmer and managing director of Gut & Boesel near Berlin. Besides the operation of traditional agriculture and forestry, the estate is a test site for Ag start-ups and research projects.

• Michael Reber
  Farmer and operator of Innovative Agriculture Reber, a farm in Gailenkirchen near Schwäbisch Hall, Germany

Sustainable Diet – Sustainable Future

In this session we invite you to work with nutrition experts, industry and start-ups on possible approaches to how we can make our food healthy and sustainable so that we not only soothe our own consciences, but also contribute to developing agriculture and food production forward.

(Confirmed) Speakers

• Dr. Simone K. Frey
  Part of the Farm & Food Advisory Board, session host and founder of Future of Nutrition, a network for nutrition tech start-ups