As part of the RWA Group Day on 18th May 2022, a new highlight of RWA’s Korneuburg campus was opened for all employees, but especially for visitors who want to experience innovation live. The Agro Innovation Lab also participated with a lively presentation of the idea of innovation in agriculture.
It’s now eighteen months since the RWA Group and its subsidiaries, including The Agro Innovation Lab, moved to the newly built Korneuburg campus in Lower Austria. This physical proximity to our parent company the RWA and other subsidiaries is particularly practical as we drive innovation across the group.
In addition to our work with partner companies, it’s also very important for the Agro Innovation Lab to maintain a dialogue with farmers, consumers and all other stakeholders and to ensure that agriculture is a tangible and realistically presented experience. End consumers are not always aware of the many innovative technologies that are now used by farmers. The image of agriculture is often trivialised by media portrayals of a “milk-carton idyll”, despite the fact that today’s farms and farm managers work in a highly professional manner and use state-of-the-art technology and professional digital tools. This development towards precision farming affects all farms in a number of ways, regardless of their size.
The Innovation Centre was created to introduce visitors to the innovative work that the RWA and its subsidiaries carry out on behalf of Austrian agriculture. Hence, the Agro Innovation Lab was happy to participate in the design of the centre at the Korneuburg campus in order to offer a concrete insight into its own work. Interactive elements show, among other things, our cooperation with startups in the context of innovation formats and our pioneering work in the area of agricultural robotics. For example, one of the very first “Oz” field robots can be admired in the small exhibition. Its successors are now in regular use across Europe.
In addition to the content provided by the Agro Innovation Lab and the Farming Innovations and Agricultural Marketing divisions, a number of participating companies such as Agrarcommander also invite visitors to see how innovation takes place across the group. Among other things, visitors can put on VR glasses to experience the flight of a drone as it releases beneficial insects, take a ride on a combine harvester with the XXL Farming Simulator, test their knowledge with quizzes or simply enjoy the wide range of further animated and, above all, informative material. We’re delighted by the frequent visits from international groups, such as the recent delegation of top officials from the Slovenian Cooperative Federation. RWA Corporate Communications organises regular guided tours for groups of visitors.