Agriculture, I think, is one of the next big fields for improvements [1]. But it has always been a source of interesting problems and solutions.
"[...] One way is to randomize the confounding element so that it’s effect is not influencing the element under investigation. If you have to find out which fertilizer is the best, but the water and soil have different properties over your massive 20 acre field, then you need to randomize where you put what fertilizer. It gets even more complicated since you might randomly put them in a really bad formation, so these super smart people came up with ways around that too. [...]"
[1] Think about robotic green houses in cities for instance. If you isolate your system well you might not even need pesticides and you might save tons of water and energy.
Why not? You're not born knowing how to farm, and if a classroom can turn out better farmers, it makes sense. There's a lot more to crop growing/harvesting and animal husbandry than "throw seeds over there, and while you're waiting for plants to grow you can take these animals' eggs."
I have read an occasional article on modern farming methods -- some for smaller farms, some on large-scale agriculture -- and no matter how much science and careful methodology I previously guess that they use, the articles surprise me anyway.
That's a farming program inside a large university, not a farming school. Are there actual farming schools or does "farming school" just refer to an agriculture department?
"[...] One way is to randomize the confounding element so that it’s effect is not influencing the element under investigation. If you have to find out which fertilizer is the best, but the water and soil have different properties over your massive 20 acre field, then you need to randomize where you put what fertilizer. It gets even more complicated since you might randomly put them in a really bad formation, so these super smart people came up with ways around that too. [...]"
http://zedshaw.com/essays/programmer_stats.html
[1] Think about robotic green houses in cities for instance. If you isolate your system well you might not even need pesticides and you might save tons of water and energy.