| Popis: |
I would like to express my gratitude to the conference's organizing committee for inviting me here, and allowing to me to share some thoughts with you today on whatis a very hot topic in agriculture, in biological engineering, and in almost every fieldand application that is touched by sensors. These are very exciting times, indeed. Given that this year commemorates 100 years of agricultural and biologicalengineering as a professional society (whether or not “biological” has always beenexplicitly stated), it is worth examining that legacy briefly. This conference's organizershave done that in their theme statement. Agricultural mechanization has indeed been agreat achievement. It has brought relative food security to millions of people, in thiscountry and globally, and has generated great prosperity for several generations of rural Americans—not just farmers, but the companion enterprises that provide financialresources, transportation, and retail goods and services. It helped generate a culture andway of life that was both celebrated and scrutinized in artistic and literary depictions over the years—Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, John Steinbeck's The Grapesof Wrath, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (incidentally, the year 2007 is also the 100thanniversary of her birth), Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac, Woody Guthrie's music, The Wizard of Oz, and Grant Wood's American Gothic, to mention only a few. Thereach of this boom in agricultural productivity—driven partly by mechanization—extends far beyond agriculture and food production. |
