Press release
The Club of Bologna is an observatory for future agricultural mechanization
More than sixty academic figures and experts in agricultural engineering gathered in Hanover at Agritechnica for the 27th meeting of the Club of Bologna. On the agenda were analyses of all the frontier issues and the descriptions of updated fully developed technologies and those coming in future for automating agricultural productivity procedures, farming in developing countries and types of machinery and equipment for forested areas.
The Agritechnica agricultural machinery trade fair in Hanover was the site of the 27th meeting of the Club of Bologna, the international association of prestigious representatives of university from around the world, researchers and industries in the agricultural engineering sector led by President Paolo Balsari of the University of Turin. Taking part in the assembly were more than sixty experts from twenty countries and four international organizations. The meeting was opened with greetings delivered by FederUnacoma President Alessandro Malavolti and DLG CEO Reinhard Grandke. Named as the theme for the meeting was Agricultural Mechanization: Present Meets the Future for dealing with in four separate sessions: the 4.0 industry and 4.0 Impact on Agriculture; Specialized Mechanization; Forestry Machinery; the Nairobi Conference on Mechanizing Agriculture. The first session was led by Axel Munack with a focus on reports from Massimo Ribaldone of the SDF Group – Italia, Franco Oliaro of ROJ – Italia and Ulrich Adam, the CEMA Secretary General. The second session was presided over by Ulrich Adam with contributions by President Peter Van der Vlugt of AEF Isobus, Willy Peeters from John Deere and Marcello Mongiardo from CNH. The third was coordinated by Danilo Monarca the University ofTuscia, in Viterbo, Italy with talks delivered by Ute Seeling from Kuratorium für Waldarbeit und Forsttechnike.V. and Raffaele Cavalli from the University of Padua. The fourth was led by Marco Pezzini of FederUnacoma with a report delivered by Josef Kienzle from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO. Other than this work by the meeting, the assembly dealt with new developments which included organization issues and the arrival of new members, Emilio Gil, a Spanish academic joining the directors committee, fellow national Luis Marquez and three more new members, Naoshi Kondo from Japan, Eskil Nilsson from Sweden and Spiros Fountas from Greece. Also new was the creation of CoBCards, an IT support containing data on agricultural engineering and information on each of the club members. By downloading these Cards to the network, the present 93 members around the world can be contacted by those in the sector with the use of a special search engine for handling issues of their specific interest. For the purpose of raising the Club of Bologna profile it was decided to upgrade the Giuseppe Pellizzi Prize to be awarded during EIMA International 2018 for the third edition of rewards for three winners. The competition will be opened in the near future and reported on the website Also completed was the formation of three Work Groups for dealing with specific issues by the ten members in each group and reports drafted by each group’s coordinator for presentations during the upcoming meetings of the club. The next one is scheduled for November 2018 in Bologna during EIMA International.
Rome, November 22, 2017
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