Annual Meeting of the Precision Agriculture Service Providers Association (ABPSAP)

January-30-2020 1100 From Goiania, Goias, Brazil

I had the privilege of being the final speaker at this two-day event. There were 130 attendees. Approximately half of the meeting was centered around software and hardware while the other half was centered around government, university and consultant speakers.

On day one I sat in on several talks. I realized I could somewhat read Portuguese, but could not understand a thing they were saying unless it was “good day, good-bye, or thank you”. On day two there were two of us English speakers, so the Association hired a real-time translation service. The other English speaker was from Australia named Frank D’Edem. So, for the two of us the early morning talks were translated to Portuguese and then later our talks were translated from English to Portuguese.

I can’t speak for my contribution, but all other speakers were top notch. I was asked a dozen questions at the end of my talk. Many centered around why our Mz’s (Management Zones) were so small and why we pull so many soil cores. The answers were all relative to our geography which is obviously much different from theirs. I overheard a quote to sample a farm based on 30-hectare zones or 74 acres per zone.

There was an evening reception between the two nights of the meeting, and I was able to meet at least 10 members who spoke English too. They are very well educated and well-travelled at this professional level in Brazil. I was very impressed though I expected no less based on my exposure to my friend, DinDin. That’s his nickname. And that is a long-standing tradition in Ag Universities in Brazil, to earn a nickname for life that is.

A couple side notes: The hotel asked for my fingerprint on check-in. I later discovered I needed my fingerprint to get up to the room. Also I had to place my room key in a device inside the room to turn the electricity on. I thought DinDin looked nice sporting the hat I gave him from NC.