Why digital agriculture is fertile ground for software systems research (keynote)

In this talk, I will try to make a case that more computer systems researchers, including those working on programming languages and software systems, should look for new research opportunities in the field of Digital Agriculture. I will start by describing briefly several examples of broad computing challenges in this field. I will then drill deeper into a few specific examples of past or ongoing software systems projects, both from our research and that of other research groups, where new research was needed to solve important digital agriculture challenges. I will briefly discuss a wide range of federal funding opportunities available for collaborative research spanning Computer Science and many different aspects of agriculture. The key observation is that digital agriculture raises difficult and interesting research challenges for Computer Science researchers in general, and software systems researchers in particular.