Agriculture is a numbers game now more than any other time in history. Precision agriculture and the integration of technology and location services has given farmers heaps and heaps of data. Don't get me wrong, data are great. But what are you doing with all of those data? Are you able to extract meaningful information from all of the data that are generated in a growing season to help with decision making in the future? 

If you have ever wanted to learn how to use all of the data from your farm to help with future decision-making processes, an upcoming workshop offered by the University of Illinois might be just for you. 

This year, in 2020, the University of Illinois is offering two identical workshops entitled "Data Harvesting: Homegrown Data Analysis for Agriculture". The first workshop will be offered February 20-21 and the second will be March 5-6. Both workshops will be on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. These free two-day workshops will be coordinated by researchers from the University of Illinois that will teach attendees about free tools that are available for you to use with your own farm's data to do such things as improving fertilizer application rates, looking at conditions across time, and more. 

These workshops will teach the basics of data science. This means that you do not need to have a background in computer science in order to learn and succeed! If you aren't sure whether attending a workshop is for you, follow this link to the website about the events for an introductory video and sample lesson. All you need to bring to the workshop is your own laptop running on Windows, Mac, or Linux operating systems. Instructors will guide attendees through installing statistics programs and how to use them throughout the workshop. 

Seats for the workshops are limited AND scholarships are available. It is highly recommended that you register in advance and apply for scholarships early. More information on the scholarship and registration are available on the website as well. 

This is a really great opportunity to help farmers, agronomists, CCA's, and anyone involved in the commercial agriculture industry learn more about how to effectively use their data. If you have any questions, you may email me at harbach2@illinois.edu or Dena Strong at dlstrong@illinois.edu