August 2005

What's Inside This Month's  Sensor:

Features:

• The Director's Cut

• Company Spotlight: Agricultural Information Management

• Image of the Month

• Upcoming Events

• Legislative Corner

• Did You Know???

• EIGS Partner News

• Seen and Heard

August Articles:

• Global Perspectives

• Industry Perspective

• Conference Spotlight: Gulf Coast Geospatial Conference

The Director's Cut

The Geospatial Industry: An Engine for Economic Growth in Mississippi

Since the initial start-up of Mississippi’s geospatial technology industry cluster in 1997, we have gathered data that illustrates the economic impact these high tech companies have on the state of Mississippi. The economic impact of an industry cluster is a measure of the benefits it provides to the state. These benefits include jobs, wages, and expenditures.

From seven charter members to the current 35 members, the cluster has shown consistent growth from year to year. This year is no different. We recently finalized the numbers for July 1, 2004 through June 30, 2005, and found that the EIGS companies continue to contribute to the Mississippi economy through higher paying, high technology jobs.

During the past year, over 575 people were employed by EIGS geospatial companies with an average annual salary of $52,500 - a five percent growth in the average annual salary from 2003-2004. The total payroll for the entire cluster was almost $30 million.

EIGS member companies invested $39.7 million in business operations in the state of Mississippi, a growth of more than $10 million over last year. And since 1998, these companies have invested close to $160 million in building the geospatial industry in the state.

The data is encouraging and provides further evidence that this industry continues to be a solid investment for the state of Mississippi. These statistics demonstrate the positive impact the geospatial industry is to the health and prosperity of our state. They also show that this industry can be a powerful engine for economic development and growth in Mississippi, creating better paying, higher quality employment opportunities.

The numbers are exciting and the EIGS staff looks forward to continuing our work with the companies to keep this growth on an upward trend and to meet the constantly changing needs of this new emerging technology sector.

A member of Mississippi’s geospatial technology industry cluster since February 2001, Agricultural Information Management (AIM) brings the rapidly growing technology of precision agriculture to producers, ag consultants, ag input suppliers, and other agribusinesses. From offices in Lambert, Mississippi, AIM services clients in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee.

AIM provides a variety of hardware, software and services including:

• Basic Mapping
  includes scanning client maps, defining farm, field, and property boundaries, and crop coding.

• Geo-Referenced Mapping
  provides the basic maps for recording site-specific applications which require documentation of location.

• Specified Site Referencing
  determines approximate geographical coordinates of any structure or field as well as calculates field or part field acreage.

• Minimum Field Records
  includes recording and costing of herbicide, fungicide, insecticide, and special R.U.P. pesticides by field and enterprise. Yield data by field and enterprise is also recorded. Periodic reports are provided to the client.

• Complete Field Records
  includes recording and costing of all variable inputs. Field, enterprise, partial, cash flow, budget, and resource use reports are provided to the client periodically. Detailed information is provided to improve statistical inferencing procedures and mapping geo-referenced data.

• Creation of Controller Cards & Data Translation
  to apply products using variable rate applications- fertilizer and ground applied herbicides and insecticides.

• Training Classes

• Online, on-site and phone support

• GIS and mapping software
  Farmworks and Agleader SMS

• Hardware and GPS Equipment
  Yield monitors; GPS receivers; Lightbar Guidance Systems; field computers; Variable rate controllers; Trimble products; and related accessories.

AIM is dedicated to “making it work on the farm” and prides itself on “from dirt to data.” It is easy to see why AIM continues to fill the role as one of the top dealers in the county in the ag industry for GIS and mapping software as well as hardware and equipment. Be sure to check out this month’s Industry Perspective for “The Only Thing Constant is Change or Faming in America: Tomorrow is Today” by Dr. Robert Mehrle of AIM. For more information about AIM, please contact Dr. Mehrle at aimgps@aimgps.com, 662-326-4442, or visit www.aimgps.com.

IMAGE OF THE MONTH

Congratulations to the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery which successfully launched on July 26, 2005. The seven-member STS-114 crew will test new safety procedures and deliver supplies and equipment to the International Space Station. Satellite GOES-12 was able to see the plume from the launch.

This image provided by NOAA.

LEGISLATIVE CORNER

The Mississippi Legislature met in mid-July for the 4th special session of the year. The call for the session was limited to Baxter Healthcare in Cleveland, Mississippi. The session which lasted one hour and twenty-two minutes was the shortest in history. State lawmakers approved $14 million for Baxter which completes a three-year $24 million legislative commitment that allows Baxter to diversify its medical products line and safeguard an estimated 800 jobs.

EIGS PARTNER NEWS

The Mississippi Technology Alliance (MTA) will be hosting the 6th Annual Conference on High Technology November 8-9 in Jackson.  Find more information at www.technologyalliance.ms.

SEEN AND HEARD

"In addressing the conference theme, Jack asked us to consider each word carefully: GIS...Helping...Manage...Our...World. He sketched out what he sees as the growth and evolution of GIS: supporting publishing, discovery, sharing, interoperability, distributed data management, collaborative computing, and application integration. GIS, he noted, is evolving on the Internet into something he called the GeoWeb, or a System of Systems. He sees it as driving the evolution of GIS. "Over time you will have rapidly increasing GIS Services on the Web. This GeoWeb idea will evolve rapidly and will be driven by....millions and millions of participants."

-- Jack Dangermond at the 2005 ESRI International User Conference

DID YOU KNOW???

Google Earth uses DigitalGlobe (an EIGS member) satellite imagery to help populate its 3D interface to the planet. Check it out at: www.earth.google.com.

CONFERENCE SPOTLIGHT

Thinking about incorporating GIS into your activities? Wanting to find out how new technology releases can improve your GIS capabilities? Are you a GIS user and want to network and learn what others are doing? Looking for advice or are you a manager or commissioner who oversees GIS and want to increase your exposure and knowledge of GIS and its capabilities? Well the Gulf Coast Geospatial Conference sponsored by the Gulf Coast Geospatial Center (an EIGS Partner) being held in Biloxi, Mississippi, October 19-21, 2005, is the place for you.

This year’s theme is Geospatial Applications in Coastal Research with Dr. Frank E. Muller-Karger as the keynote speaker. Dr. Frank E. Muller-Karger, a biological oceanographer (Professor) at the College of Marine Science, University of South Florida is the director for the Institute for Marine Remote Sensing. Dr. Muller-Karger previously received the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Award for Outstanding Contributions and the NASA Administrator Award for Exceptional Contribution and Service for supporting development of satellite technologies for ocean observation.

Attendees will include representatives of GIS, remote sensing, and geospatial users from the state of Mississippi. Several EIGS companies and partners will be participating in this conference, as exhibitors and presenters. There are several plenary sessions, including an opening night event, keynote speaker luncheons, concurrent sessions, and poster sessions. With an anticipated 300-plus individuals attending from around the state, this will be a positive and profitable experience for everyone. Exhibitors will be located within the casino's atrium and multiple events are being planned during exhibit hours, including the opening reception and beverage breaks. For more information on how you can attend or participate in what is turning out to be the South Coast’s premier Geospatial and Remote Sensing event contact Anitra Blake at (228) 818-8858 or anitra.blake@usm.edu or visit the conference webpage, http://www.usm.edu/gcgc/conference.

UPCOMING EVENTS

August 10, 2005
EIGS Research Symposium
Stennis Space Center, MS

August 17th, 2005
NASA Stennis Industry Day and Small Business Expo
Bay St. Louis, MS

August 30, 2005
EIGS Exchange
Jackson, MS

September 7-10, 2005
The Eighth Annual Crime Mapping Research Conference
Savannah, GA

September 12–14, 2005
ESRI Homeland Security GIS Summit
Denver, CO

September 14-17, 2005
MS Association of Realtors Convention and Expo
Natchez, Mississippi

September 19 –21, 2005
The 14th Annual GIS for Oil & Gas Conference & Exhibition
Houston, Texas

October 19-21, 2005
Mississippi Gulf Coast 2005 Geospatial Conference
Biloxi, MS

November 8-9, 2005
Sixth Annual Conference on High Technology
Jackson, MS

Global Perspectives

Thousands of closed-circuit TVs monitor city's subway system
Closed-circuit TV cameras track people in the British capital almost everywhere they go. Now, those recordings are used to help police uncover much needed information. More than 6,000 cameras monitor the Underground subway network and 1,800 watch the city's train stations. Cameras also have been installed on some London buses.

Vietnamese To Receive Spot, Envisat Imagery
EADS Defense and Communications Systems will provide ground-reception systems for the Spot optical and Envisat radar satellites to the Vietnamese government under a contract to equip and train Vietnamese agencies to use Earth observation satellite data, EADS Defense and Communications announced. Under the three-year contract, valued at 19.3 million euros ($23 million), EADS will install a Spot- and Envisat-compatible satellite ground station, an image processing and distribution center and 15 application systems designed for use by different government agencies. The contract includes training Vietnamese personnel in the use of satellite data for civil-defense, environmental, agricultural, land-management and other purposes.

Department Announces New Geospatial One-Stop Portal at National Association of Counties Conference
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Policy, Management and Budget Scott Cameron announced the launch of the new Geospatial One-Stop portal at the 2005 Annual Conference of the National Association of Counties meeting in Hawaii. The faster, more efficient www.geodata.gov is an online tool for combining thousands of geospatial resources from federal, state, local, tribal and private sources. The portal enables decision-makers to access geospatial resources and respond more quickly during an emergency to protect lives, property and basic services. Geospatial One-Stop provides access to more than 72,000 federal, state and local government geospatial resources.

Industry Perspective:

The Only Thing Constant Is Change or

Farming in America: Tomorrow is Today

by Dr. Robert Mehrle, AIM
(For the full version of this article, please visit www.aimgps.com and click on “My Opinion”)

It is often said that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." That hardly seems appropriate when thinking about farming in America today. Satellites roam the skies telling us (and everyone else) where we are (GPS), how crop conditions appear (remote sensing), and even steering our tractors straighter than any human ever could (auto steering). Gone are the days when we could "Gee" and "Haw" satisfied with believing that "crooked rows make more than straight rows do." Gone are the days when a good farmer could make a living with a mule and forty acres and expanding to eighty was pretty risky. Such thoughts are only about 60 - 70 years old - not only is change constant, it is also fast. In the 1940's a row crop farm with 800 acres was considered an above average sized farm. By the 1970's a good-sized farm would contain 1500 - 2000 acres. Twenty-first century row crop farms of 6000 acres or more are common. Gone are the days when dad would plant a 10 acre field of soybeans here, a 20 acre cotton field there - because the lay of the land, the natural drains, the slight of slope suggested the crop best suited for that particular patch. But it was difficult for eight row cultivators to turn around in such cramped quarters. The advent of bulldozers, draglines, and earth movers opened the gate as equipment size and productivity increased with field size.

During this last 60 - 70 years, science and technology have both promoted the use of new tools designed to increase productivity and efficiency and responded to socio-economic forces necessitating change. Tractors and their multi-row implements introduced in the 1940's reduced the dependence on labor needed to grow mule fuel, feed daily, and support large families for crop production. Such "revolutionary" technology also responded to the migration of labor to urban centers seeking a better life and the intrusion of relatively labor-intensive small industries moving away from the factories of the north. The farmer could then determine the effectiveness of input applications and tillage operations on the end of the row instead of walking behind a hand labor crew while checking the progress of the field crop at the same time.

Willard Cochrane [The Development of American Agriculture, 1979] summarized the impact of mechanization and technology changes as a shift in American agricultural from "extensive" to "intensive" production. That is, instead of expanding land acres in production to increase output and profits, American farmers in the 1960's and 1970's shifted to using more inputs on the same acres to accomplish the same purpose. As a result, however, the 1970's witnessed a tremendous increase in input prices. Simultaneously, crop prices responded to the increased supply and began falling. US exports increased sharply and the United States became highly dependent on international markets and government price and income supports to sustain viable farming businesses.

The 1980's introduced two new "revolutionary" technologies that eventually became available to agriculture giving rise to entirely new ag-oriented industries. The US Department of Defense developed the NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) and IBM produced desktop computers. Twenty-four satellites circle the earth providing radio signals to ground receivers producing time and location data within an error of about " 35 - 40 feet (termed "accuracy"). Therefore, with the government satellites a farmer can know his or her position on a map and return within eyesight to that spot. Better accuracy down to one foot and, more expensively, to one inch, can be achieved by adding another signal from a known location called "differential" or DGPS. The differential source knows its geographic location and that of the satellites. It measures the "difference" between where the GPS satellites say the source is and where it knows it is and sends that "differential" measurement to correct the user's receiver in the field. GPS gives location so that a place can be marked and found again; such as, a soil sample point that can be returned to for fertilizer applications.

The second new technology is computers. Computers provide the power to process lots of data in a short period of time. Computers also provide the ability to store a lot of data about farms and fields in a Geographic Information System (GIS). Records, notes, remote images, maps of input applications, and maps of soil properties about thousands of acres and hundreds of fields can be archived and linked so that decisions can be made using information we gather using computers on tractors, sprayers, in trucks on the side of the turnrow, combines and cotton pickers, information from crop scouts, agronomists, and researchers, information from airplanes, satellites, and the internet. No wonder some agricultural experts say we have passed from the "Age of Mechanization," through the "Age of Technology," and to the newest revolutionary period in American agriculture - the "Age of Information." Farmers now study reports and maps of their farms to look for trends and problem areas. While production decisions still dominate the farmer's time and energy and yields are still the most important side of staying in business, marketing, government programs, protecting the environment, the stability of the government in Saudi Arabia, and the bean crop in Brazil increasingly add to decision-making woes. How things have changed!

"The most effective fertilizer is the footsteps of the master" is a saying that brings all of this home. What has changed? The soil is still soil. Scientists throughout the world are still trying to understand the relationship between our soils and productive capacity - how static soil properties impact yields and how management can best intervene to make a profit. As farming methods become more "intensive," farmers more dependent on non-farm inputs, the world marketplace more competitive, the environment and our neighbors demand better stewardship, the more necessary it becomes for eight, twelve, and thirty row equipment to be able to respond to the needs of that ten or twenty acre patch which our fathers put in beans and is now part of a three hundred acre cotton field. GPS and GIS enable the farmer to do what has always had to be done - treat each area of the field as if it is different, because IT IS.

The future was and is new technology - bigger tractors, air-conditioned combines, and the ability to communicate using mobile radios. Now we have wireless communication between a tractor computer, a pickup in the field, and the office computer to monitor daily operations. We have cotton plants that will resist some of the most potent herbicides and insects known to man. We have machines that can run through the field, detect soil properties, and vary lime and fertilizer application rates on-the-go. We have sensors that can tell the difference between good plants and weeds and turn a herbicide on and off on-the-go. Even satellite and aerial imaging is becoming obsolete! Variable rate irrigation and driverless tractors are not far away. The future is now - but new technology is limited by the knowledge that NOW is also the future. Technology gives farmers new tools to do old jobs. The basic relationship between soil, crops, and the farmer still are inseparable. Success still pays homage to the good fortune of location and weather.

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

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