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Center for Digital Agriculture Conference 2026

Generative AI in Agriculture

In Person Event • March 9, 2026 • iHotel and Illinois Conference Center

Registration
Conference Agenda
Travel & Lodging
Questions? Contact Us

Conference Overview

Join the Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA) on March 9, 2026, for our annual conference at the iHotel and Conference Center! 

This year’s theme — Generative AI (GenAI) in Agriculture — spotlights how cutting-edge AI technologies are transforming the future of farming. From boosting productivity and sustainability to tackling challenges in crop phenotyping and pest management, GenAI tools like Large Language Models (LLMs) are unlocking groundbreaking possibilities across the agricultural landscape.

Discover how GenAI is redefining what’s possible in agriculture through insights from leading experts in industry and academia. Explore how innovation, efficiency, and impact converge as we shape the next era of digital agriculture together.

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of the conversation driving the future of agtech.

Keynote Speakers

Brian Lutz

VP, Agricultural Solutions, Corteva Agriscience

Brian Lutz leads the Farming Solutions & Digital sub-function within the Research & Development organization for Corteva Agriscience.  In his role, Brian is responsible for the development of digital solutions that support the R&D pipeline and enable Corteva’s business.  He also serves as a member of the R&D Leadership team. Brian joined Corteva in 2021 in the Portfolio Strategy Program Management role and continues to contribute to the company’s long-term strategic planning.

Prior to starting at Corteva, Brian was Chief Science Officer at The Climate Corporation, and was also a member of Bayer Crop Science’s R&D Leadership Team. Before joining industry, he had an academic career focused on studying soil carbon and nutrient dynamics and has an extensive amount of experience working at the science-policy interface on topics associated with global environmental change.

Brian was raised on a fourth-generation corn and soybean farm in Ohio and remains closely connected to his family’s farming operation.  Brian earned his undergraduate degree in Biology from the College of Wooster and his Ph.D. in Biogeochemistry from Duke University. He also holds certificates from Northwestern University in executive education and business management.

Stewart Collis

Senior Program Officer, Digital Solutions, Agricultural Development
Gates Foundation

Stewart Collis is Senior Program Officer for Digital Agriculture Solutions at the Gates Foundation where he focuses on digital farmer services, smart farming and digital agricultural ecosystems in low- and middle-income countries across Africa and South Asia.

Mr. Collis has over 25 years’ experience in agricultural information technology and was co-founder and CTO at aWhere, a Benefit Corporation providing global Ag-weather content, agricultural modeling and analytics to private and public sector partners. Previously Mr. Collis worked on climate-driven spatial crop simulation modeling and ag-data management tools at Texas A&M University and the International Center for Research in Agroforestry. Mr. Collis has a Master of Engineering Science in Geomatic Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

 

Conference Registration

Registration is closed, and we have reached max attendance capacity! Walk-ins are not allowed.

Conference Agenda

The conference agenda is currently under development. Please continue to check this page for updates.

TIME
AGENDA

7:30 a.m.

Registration Opens and Light Breakfast

8:00 a.m.

Welcome Remarks

🎤 Speaker: John Reid, CDA Executive Director

8:10 a.m.

Framing Research and Translational Opportunities in GenAI for Agriculture

🎤 Speaker: Vikram Adve, Donald B. Gillies Professor of Computer Science, AIFARMS PI, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

8:30 a.m.

Keynote: Beyond Scarcity: AI, Abundance, and Agriculture’s Next Chapter

🎤 Speaker: Brian Lutz, Vice President of Agricultural Solutions, Corteva Agriscience

9:00 a.m.

GeoSpatial Artificial Intelligence: Advances and Challenges

🎤 Speaker: Arindam Banerjee, Founder Professor in Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

9:20 a.m.

GenAI Empowered Biological Molecule Discovery and Design

🎤 Speaker: Ge Liu, Assistant Professor in Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

9:40 a.m.

Mining High-throughput Phenotyping Data with Self-supervised Machine Learning

🎤 Speaker: Mohammed El-Kebir, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

10:00 a.m.

☕️ Break

10:30 a.m.

CropWizard + AI AgriBench

🎤 Speaker: Vikram Adve, Donald B. Gillies Professor of Computer Science, AIFARMS PI, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

10:50 a.m.

Cultivating Spatial Intelligence: How Grounded Reasoning Empowers Autonomous Agriculture

🎤 Speaker: Liangyan Gui, Research Assistant Professor, Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

11:10 a.m.

Ecosystems that Execute: Turning Agricultural Challenges into Field-Tested Solutions

🎤 Speaker: William Aderholdt, Grand Farm

11:30 a.m.

Farmer Perspectives – Envisioning the AI-Equipped Ag Enterprise

🎤 Speakers:

  • Moderator: Tami Craig Schilling, DeepRoot Strategies, LLC
  • Andrew Nelson, Nelson Farms
  • Kyle Courtney, RentEase and AI Smart Farms
  • Heather Hampton  Knodle, President, Knodle Ltd Family Farms

12:30 p.m.

🍽️ Lunch

1:30 p.m.

Virtual Keynote

🎤 Speaker: Stewart Collis, Senior Program Officer for Digital Agriculture Solutions, Gates Foundation

2:00 p.m.

Information, Expertise, and Generative AI in Smallholder Agriculture: A Research Agenda

🎤 Speaker: Hope Michelson, Professor, Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

2:20 p.m.

GenAI Across Scales in Agriculture: From Molecules to Farm Decisions

🎤 Speaker: Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Professor in Engineering and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, AIIRA PI,  Iowa State University

2:40 p.m.

GenAI for Drone Imagery: The John Deere–Sentera Approach

🎤 Speaker: Dimitris Zermas, Director of Machine Learning, John Deere

3:00 p.m.

From Benchmarks to Fields: Evaluating AI for Smallholder Farmers

🎤 Speaker: Rikin Gandhi, Digital Green, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

3:20 p.m.

☕️ Break

3:40 p.m.

Agronomy Intelligence (AI): Educate, Automate, Accelerate

🎤 Speakers: Patrick Sanders, Director, Agronomy Enablement, Nutrien

4:00 p.m.

Future of GenAI in Production Agriculture 

🎤 Speakers:

  • Moderator: John Reid, Center for Digital Agriculture
  • Mark Moran, Bayer Crop Sciences
  • Alex Foessel, Balanced Engineering
  • Noel Anderson, Grand Farm

5:00 p.m.

Closing Remarks

Our Sponsors

Travel & Lodging Information

Lodging

Champaign-Urbana has many hotels near the University of Illinois campus.

Below is a short list of potential lodging accommodations nearby.

Getting Here/Around

Champaign-Urbana is easy to get to and navigate. Conveniently situated off three major interstates, we’re nearly equidistant from Chicago, Indianapolis and St. Louis. Transportation options include:

Once here, our award-winning mass transit district will help get you around, as will our rentable bikes and e-bikes, or walk in our connected districts! We also have taxi cab services and ride sharing services.

iHotel and Illinois Conference Center

All events will take place in the Chancellor Ballroom at the iHotel and Illinois Conference Center. 

How to get to iHotel and Illinois Conference Center:

IHotel and Illinois Conference Center address: 1900 S 1st St, Champaign, IL 61820

Where should I park for the conference?
iHotel and Illinois Conference Center offer free onsite parking. 

Click here for more info about the iHotel and Illinois Conference Center

Questions: Please contact digitalag@illinois.edu with any questions