The @aries_project Twitter account organized an online discussion on the key role of pollinator technologies in contributing towards a sustainable agriculture, on March 30.
Main takeaways addressed the need of enhancing floral resources in order to effectively mitigate pollinator diversity’s loss. Participants also agreed on the importance of AI-based technologies to help farmers map and gather information about pollinators’ availability within their crops. However, most of them also stressed how technologies cannot replace bees and other insects as pollinators, as well as how their success depends on ethical use.
During one hour, panellists Lucas Alejandro Garibaldi (@Luqui_Garibaldi), Research Institute on Natural Resources, Agroecology and Rural Development (IRNAD, UNRN-CONICET); Ignasi Bartomeus (@ibartomeus), Doñana Biological Station; Cristina Botías (@cristinabotias), Center of Apicultural and Agri-environmental Research (CIAPA-IRIAF); Luís Ferreirim (@LFerreirim), Greenpeace Spain; and Germán Canomanuel (@GermanC_M), Syngenta Spain contributed to the vibrant and thought-provoking conversation.
Many interesting resources and projects related to pollinator technologies, sustainable farming and AI came out during the Q&A session. For instance, the World Bee Project, an international initiative that uses big data to monitor bees to research the pollinator and pollination crisis; and BeeMachine, a research project that identifies North American bumble bee species in images, with computer vision.
We would like to thank all the participants for bringing their great inputs and engaging in such interesting exchanges throughout the chat! Check out the discussion’s wrap-up by clicking on the images below and watch for the upcoming online discussions to be organized throughout 2021, both on our blog and via our social media channels.
