From Letterfrack to Rural Ontario: Sharing Ideas from the 2024 North Atlantic Forum

Oct 09, 2024

Researchers, policymakers and practitioners recently gathered in Letterfrack, Ireland for the 2024 North Atlantic Forum. The Forum focused on sustainable livelihoods and sought to engage new ideas in rural development, policy practice, and the social economy.

To facilitate knowledge mobilization a series of rural research summaries were created by graduate students on innovative approaches to sustainable livelihoods. The summaries provides a snapshot of research presented at the North Atlantic Forum and provide links to online resources. Topics covered in the summaries include economic development, food security, heritage conservation, housing, policy proofing and lenses, and solar power. Take a read of the summaries below:

A Case Study of Community-Led versus State-Led Solar Projects in NunatuKavut summarized by Christine Miller (University of Prince Edward Island)
From Colonial Challenges to Community Solutions: Transforming Food Insecurity in Ktaqmkuk summarized by Avery Velez (Grenfell Campus, Memorial University)
Heritage Tourism and Local Livelihoods in Inishbofin, Ireland summarized by Eliza MacLauchlan (University of Prince Edward Island)
Navigating Economic Development Challenges in an Island Context summarized by Damilola Oyewale (University of Guelph)
Rural Ireland Plagued by Housing Affordability summarized by Lucas Berek (University of Guelph)
SABRI: Reinvesting in the Region to Expand the Economic Base summarized by Natasha Pennell (Grenfell Campus, Memorial University)
Searching for Entrepreneurialism in Rural Newfoundland summarized by Lucas Berek (University of Guelph)

The rural research summaries from the 2024 North Atlantic Forum were by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance, a collaboration between the Government of Ontario and the University of Guelph.

Source : Rural Ontario Institute

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.