It’s not every day that you get to show a minister around a farm on a computer screen!
In early July, we had the pleasure of welcoming Silke Gorißen, North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister of Agriculture, and Dr. Patricia Peill, member of the NRW State Parliament, to Forschungszentrum Jülich. The occasion was the presentation of ReGenFarm, our joint research project with Bayer Crop Science, which aims to explore how regenerative farming practices can contribute to healthier soils and more resilient agricultural systems.
I had the opportunity to present one of the parts of the project I have been working on: the digital twin of Damianshof, a real agricultural farm. By combining detailed field data with agroecosystem models, we are developing a virtual representation of the farm to investigate how different management practices affect soil carbon, water dynamics, and crop growth.
The idea is quite simple: What if we could test different farming strategies virtually before applying them in the field? For example, how might introducing cover crops influence soil carbon over the next decades? What happens if we change crop rotations or organic fertilisation? And how could these strategies perform under future climate conditions?
It was particularly exciting to present our digital farm to an audience beyond the project team for the first time. I really enjoyed meeting the Minister and exchanging ideas about the future of agriculture, the opportunities offered by digital technologies, and how we can bring scientific research closer to agricultural practice.
The visit was also a great opportunity to showcase the broader research within ReGenFarm, ranging from root phenotyping and carbon farming to soil microbiology and ecosystem modelling. What makes this project particularly interesting to me is the close collaboration between science, industry, and agricultural practice.
It was also nice to see our research receive attention beyond the scientific community, with several regional newspapers and agricultural magazines reporting on the visit!
In the News
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Aachener Zeitung: Der “Herzschlag des Feldes”: Forschung für die Landwirtschaft von morgen
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HERZOG Magazin: Von Wurzeln und digitalen Zwillingen
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top agrar: Forschung zur regenerativen Landwirtschaft
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Bayer Crop Science: Landwirtschaft resilient und zukunftssicher machen
You can also learn more about the research behind our digital farm on the official ReGenFarm project website.