XII International Scientific Symposium FMPMSA - Farm Machinery and Processes Management in Sustainable Agriculture, Lublin, Poland 2024

The XII^th International Scientific Symposium "Farm Machinery and Processes Management in Sustainable Agriculture" was held on 12-14 June 2024 at the University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Poland. The main organizer of the symposium was the Department of Machine Operation and Production Processes Management of the Faculty of Production Engineering, University of Life Sciences in Lublin and the Lublin Division of the Polish Society of Agricultural Engineering. Walloon Agricultural Research Center CRA-W from Gembloux, Belgium also participated in the organization of the symposium. The chairmen of the Scientific Committee of the symposium were Prof. Edmund Lorencowicz and Dr. Bruno Hyughebaert.

This year marks 30 years since the first seminar, which was the seed of the idea for the current symposium. In 1994, an international seminar "Rational Mechanization of Family Farms" was organized at, the then, Faculty of Agricultural Technology of the Agricultural University in Lublin. At that time, there were only 31 scientists participating, including solitary participant from abroad (Switzerland). Following years have brought changes in the thematic scope. The aim of the symposium is to create a forum for the exchange of views and scientific information among scientists interested in topics at the interface of agricultural technology and management in the context of sustainable agriculture. Nowadays, the symposium takes place every two years. Outside of Poland, the symposium was organized three times - twice in Belgium and once in Italy.

Over the last thirty years, the understanding of the concept of "sustainable development" has changed significantly. That change, in the context of agriculture and its processes, has been reflected in papers presented at subsequent symposia. Main activities related to the traditional understanding of sustainable agriculture, mainly negative impact on the environment, was expended by other aspects, such as social and economic. The enhancement of sustainable agriculture should have a positive impact on the development of local societies and the level of income. That involves not only a direct impact on farmers and their families, but also on the environment and rural areas infrastructure.

Also, some additional topics were included in the themes of the symposia, such as Agriculture 4.0 (or Faming 4.0) and Precision Agriculture (PA). Integrating digital technology into agriculture has become the most influential trend in the sector. With the possibility of farmers applying water, fertilizers, and pesticides only in the required quantities and in very specific target areas, plus technologies such as robots, temperature and moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS technology should allow the farms to be more profitable, efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly.

This year’s symposium was opened by the Rector of the University of Life Sciences in Lublin, prof. Krzysztof Kowalczyk. That was followed by the presentations in the plenary session, opened with a paper by a representative of the European Society of Agricultural Engineers (EurAgEng), Prof. José Rafael Marques da Silva from the University of Evora (Portugal). He presented the paper "ESG: Carbon and biodiversity a problem or an opportunity for smart agriculture?". The day continued with other presentations, which were followed by a gala dinner organized at the Lublin Village Museum, during which the university Song and Dance Ensemble "Jawor" performed.

Since 2006 it is the tradition to organize one day of the symposium in a selected facility related to agriculture and food economy. This year we were hosted by Ball Packaging Europe Lublin (https://www.ball.com/), the American company located in the Special Economic Zone in Felin, Lublin. It is one of the world's largest producers of beverage cans, with that factory producing can lids - approximately 56 million lids per day. The factory, which was expanded two years ago, is very modern and the technological processes are fully automated. The perfectly organized conference room and the hospitality of the hosts, as well as the technologies that could be seen during the tour of the Ball factory, made a great impression on the symposium participants.

On the third day of the symposium, a study visit was organized to selected facilities in the Lublin region related to both agricultural production and tourism. The participants learned about the functioning of the University of Life Sciences experimental farm in Czesławice. Then they visited the Pustelnia Fishing Farm in Wola Rudzka near Opole Lubelskie. The production of fish - trout and carp was presented by the company owner. After lunch in Pustelnia, the guests moved to the root gorge in Kazimierz Dolny, which is located in the Land of Loess Gorges, a place with the highest density of loess gorges in Europe. Then, the participants crossed the Vistula River by the ferry to the castle in Janowiec. After visiting the castle, the manor house in Moniaki and the granary in Podlodów, the day ended with dinner in the barn.

All 84 papers accepted for the seminar were presented; therefore, the two working days of the symposium were very intense.  One of the assumptions of our symposium is the need for an oral presentation of the submitted papers, without a poster session. This facilitates the establishment of direct contacts between participants, and gives many young, novice scientists the opportunity to gain presentation skills in front of an international body.

The FMPMSA symposium received the honorary patronage of the Marshal of the Lublin Voivodeship and the Mayor of Lublin.

The symposium is fortunate to have the EurAgEng as the co-sponsor since 2013.

The further sponsors of the symposium were companies that have been cooperating with the Department of Machine Operation and Production Process Management for many years: Agroplast Marcin Łopąg, Gravit, Kuhn-Maszyny Rolnicze, Noyen, Raiffeisen Waren, RPT-Agricultural Technical Review, Same Deutz-Fahr Polska and Traktor 24.pl.  Without cooperation and support of many companies and organizations, it would be challenging to organize the symposium, because one of the expectations was to set a low entry fee so that it would not constitute a financial barrier for participants from less developed countries.

More than eighty scientists from sixteen countries took part in the FMPMSA 2024 symposium. There were participants from Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, UK and Ukraine.

The submitted abstracts of the papers were published in: Farm Machinery and Processes Management in Sustainable Agriculture - XII International Scientific Symposium FMPMSA 2024. Book of Abstracts (ed. E. Lorencowicz, J. Uziak and B. Huyghebaert; ISBN 978-83-937433-3-9, 90 pp).

Selected papers (54), after reviews, are being published in Springer Nature Switzerland in a special volume (Farm Machinery and Processes Management in Sustainable Agriculture: XII International Scientific Symposium 2024) as part of the "Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering" series (doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70955-5).

The next symposium planned for 2026 will probably be held in Belgium. More information about the symposium, including conference publications since 1994, can be found at: www.up.lublin.pl/fmpmsa

As organizers, we are contented that we managed not only to organize an international event at a high scientific level, but also to present our university, our city and our region as modern, dynamically developing and at the same time interesting not only in terms of technology and innovation, but also in terms of tourism.

Edmund Lorencowicz & Jacek Uziak

Follow me!