Agronomy Battles Bring Research Right to the Farm

By Tim Parent, Rural Roots Canada

Farming Smarter is rolling out a new initiative aimed at bridging the gap between agricultural research and on-farm realities.

The program, called Agronomy Battles, will bring scientists, producers, and agronomists face-to-face to work through the challenges farmers deal with every day and explore research-driven solutions together.

“We’ve been talking about this concept for a while,” said Thierry Fonville, research scientist at Farming Smarter. “It’s basically a way to get closer to some of the issues that producers are facing in certain regions.”  

The format blends expert insight and grassroots discussion. “It’s a chance for producers and agronomists to voice what challenges they’re facing with a particular topic or maybe share some of the solutions they found. But it’s also for us to help narrow down what the issues are. It would be both ways. If it’s a big enough issue, it could be something that we develop into a proposal later on.”  

For example, one of the pressing concerns is the emergence of herbicide-resistant weeds. Fonville noted that while resistance is widespread, region-specific conditions make solutions tricky. “This would allow us to test some of these solutions for a very regional-tailored problem,” he said.    

This idea grew out of Farming Smarter’s experience with its Living Labs project, where the team visited rural communities instead of waiting for farmers to reach out. That approach made it easier for people to get involved and led to better results.

“We had found some success a couple of years ago when we were doing our Living Lab application,” said Fonville. “We want to be accessible. We want people to come and chat with us, to share what they know, and also to learn from us and each other. When you give people the opportunity to engage in conversations, that’s where those creative, innovative ideas and potential solutions come from.”  

That approach also reflects Farming Smarter’s shift toward what Fonville described as community appeal. “We’re part of the same network of producers, and we want to bring that home a little bit. We want to give them an opportunity to voice some of their issues so that we’re not just going off on our own and trying to solve problems that maybe weren’t that big of a deal in the first place.”

That kind of collaboration ensures research remains practical, he added. “We can’t just go off on a tangent. We want to make sure that everything we’re doing is realistic, practical, hands-on, and grounded in science to give real options and solutions to farmers. It’s not a one-size-fits-all. We want to ensure they have the tools to do their job better."

Agronomy Battles events will run in November and December, between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m., a schedule designed to fit around chores and fieldwork. For producers, it’s a chance to be heard. For researchers, it’s a chance to listen.

For both, it’s a step toward tackling challenges that no one farm or field can solve alone.