Digital Agriculture: Regulatory and Scientific Aspects of Precision Application

Anne Alix is Distinguished Laureate for Policy and Risk Management at Corteva Agriscience (formerly Dow AgroSciences), where she advises on sustainability policy and precision application technologies across EMEA. She has more than 23 years of experience in plant protection product risk assessment. After earning a PhD in Integrated Pest Management from the University of Rennes, Anne worked as an ecotoxicologist at INRA before leading the Environment and Ecotoxicology Risk Assessment Unit at AFSSA (now ANSES). She later served at the French Ministry of Agriculture, overseeing pesticide risk mitigation measures, post-registration monitoring, and plant protection product regulation. Since joining Corteva in 2011, she has focused on sustainability policy and risk management.

Johan Booij is a Researcher in the field of Precision Agriculture. He currently works at Wageningen University & Research, specialising in Field Crops.

Hugh Dawick is currently Director of Projects within the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority’s (APVMA) Science and Assurance Programme prior to which he was co-Director of the Pesticides Team responsible for managing APVMA’s pesticides applications process. He has over 30 years regulatory experience both in Australia and in the UK/EU leading on a range of technical regulatory issues including non-dietary human exposure risk assessment, spray drift and application technology related matters. He has a passion for ensuring risk assessments and regulatory approaches remain contemporary and reflect modern agricultural practices and innovation.

Joachim Dressel is the Regulatory Lead for Precision Application and Digital Agriculture- in region Europe at Syngenta. He has previously held roles as Senior Regulatory Manager for insecticides, fungicides and herbicides at Syngenta, as an environmental consultant and as environmental exposure expert at BASF. He holds a PhD in Agricultural Sciences and has a passion for agriculture as well as our environment.

Malcolm Fears is a Senior Science Fellow at Bayer Crop Science Division Research & Development specialising in formulation technology. Malcolm brings deep expertise in formulation technology and is currently focused on developing next-generation suspension concentrate formulations tailored to very-low-volume and precision application systems.

Anand K. Gavai is a researcher working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, data governance and privacy-preserving data infrastructures. He is affiliated with the 4TU Federation and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and his work focuses on FAIR and federated data sharing, semantic interoperability, trustworthy AI and multi-organisational data ecosystems across agriculture, food and health. He has previously worked in academic and applied research environments including Wageningen and the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA).

Emilio Gil is a Full Professor at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona (Spain). He is the Head of Unit of the Agricultural Machinery Research Group, and has been professor at Cornell University (ISA). Expert member of ISO in several Working Groups related with spray application technology. Emilio has over 30 years of experience in the improvement of spray technologies, especially for eD crops. He is also the Author of the Dosaviña App to adjust PPP dose for vineyards and been advisor to several governments, for instance Serbia, Chile, Cyprus and Spain, advising them on the Sustainable Use Directive.

Bernhard Gottesbüren currently runs Make-Sense Consulting, providing solutions in pesticide science. He has more than 35 years of experience in pesticide exposure assessment and formerly led the Environmental Fate Modelling Group at BASF. Since 2023, he has been involved in the development of frameworks for the exposure and risk assessment and management of pesticides, with a particular focus on precision application technologies.

Peter Hloben is Supervisor for Product Compliance at John Deere in Mannheim Germany. He oversees a team of PS&C engineers responsible for the product compliance of Crop Care, Harvesting and Hay & Forage machinery. He is also the Chairman of PT24 at CEMA the association representing the European agricultural machinery industry.

Rena Isemer is an Ecotoxicology Expert for Non-Target Terrestrial Plants and Science Fellow at the Research and Development Division of Bayer Crop Science in Germany. She leads a task force within EUPAF (European precision Application Task Force), is a member of the Pesticide Application Team at AAB and the CropLife Europe Plants ad-hoc team and leads the SETAC Plants IG.

Jorge Olivares Rivas is currently an Environmental Modeler at knoell Germany, where he applies his expertise in environmental geosciences and scientific programming to support regulatory and research projects focused on the environmental fate of pesticides under EU regulatory frameworks. He holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Navarra and an M.Sc. in Applied Environmental Geosciences from the University of Tübingen. His academic research focused on the modelling of groundwater flow in karst aquifers.

Laura Padovani is a Senior Scientific Officer at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), with over 30 years of experience in pesticide environmental fate and environmental risk assessment. She joined EFSA in 2005, after ten years of research at the University of Piacenza, and holds a PhD in Chemistry, Biochemistry and Ecology of Pesticides. At EFSA, she is involved in the EU peer review and regulatory assessment of pesticides, providing expertise in environmental exposure assessment. Her work also includes the development, update and revision of scientific guidance, methodologies and approaches supporting environmental exposure and risk assessment at EU level.

Andy Sproson is Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of AutoSpray Systems Ltd, a UK agricultural UAS operator and technology company working across aviation safety, application engineering and plant-protection regulation. He leads the development of controlled operating systems, competence frameworks and field evidence for drone spraying and spreading, working with regulators, research organisations and crop-protection stakeholders. His focus is translating autonomous application technology into safe, auditable and scientifically defensible field practice.

Grant Stark is Head of the Evidence, Committees and New Technologies team, in the Chemicals Regulation Division of the UK’s Health and Safety Executive. His role includes identifying and determining the potential impact new technologies can have on the risks associated with the application of pesticides. He is currently the Chair of the OECDs Working Party for the Pesticides Drone sub-Group.

Gerrit van Steenbergen, MSc is a researcher at Wageningen University & Research within Agro Field Technology Innovations. His work focuses on agricultural application technology.