The innovative platform will be a one-stop-shop for farmers seeking out more information on what to plant and when.
An autonomous combine–again, smaller and lighter than conventional farm machinery–harvesting HFHa’s first crop in September 2017.
Image: HandsFree Hectare
Agrolly, a platform built to help farmers in emerging markets, was chosen as the winner of IBM’s 2020 Call for Code Global Challenge.
Agrolly provides farmers with a bevy of information about weather patterns and crop characteristics, giving them advice on what would be the best thing to plant during certain times of the year. The platform also has ways for farmers to connect with experts as well as ways for them to share information and tools with each other.
During the virtual “2020 Call for Code Awards: A Global Celebration of Tech for Good” event, Agrolly was announced as the winner of the annual competition, which brings together the world’s brightest
Got any spaces left on that 2020 bingo card? Pencil in “another Dust Bowl in the Great Plains.” A study from University of Utah researchers and their colleagues finds that atmospheric dust levels are rising across the Great Plains at a rate of up to 5% per year.
The trend of rising dust parallels expansion of cropland and seasonal crop cycles, suggesting that farming practices are exposing more soil to wind erosion. And if the Great Plains becomes drier, a possibility under climate change scenarios, then all the pieces are in place for a repeat of the Dust Bowl that devastated the Midwest in the 1930s.
“We can’t make changes to the earth surface without some kind of consequence just as we can’t burn fossil fuels without consequences,” says Andy Lambert, lead author of the study and a recent U graduate. “So while the agriculture industry is absolutely important, we
The appointment of these executives coincides with Kalera’s expansion into new markets nationwide.
Kalera
Mark Gagnon, VP of Sales for Retail Accounts at Kalera, has over three decades of experience in the produce and grocery industries.
Mark Gagnon, VP of Sales for Retail Accounts at Kalera, has over three decades of experience in the produce and grocery industries.
Kalera
Kalera’s newly appointed VP of Foodservice Sales, Marc Jennings, brings with him over 20 years of experience in the foodservice industry.
Kalera’s newly appointed VP of Foodservice Sales, Marc Jennings, brings with him over 20 years of experience in the foodservice industry.
ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 13, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, technology-driven vertical farming company Kalera (NOTC: KALERA, Bloomberg: KSLLF) announced that it has hired two new executives to fill the positions of Vice President of Foodservice Sales and Vice President of Sales for Retail Accounts. The newly appointed VP of
From the outside, VertiVegies looked like a handful of grubby shipping containers put side by side and drilled together. A couple of meters in height, they were propped up on a patch of concrete in one of Singapore’s nondescript suburbs. But once he was inside, Ankesh Shahra saw potential. Huge potential.
Shahra, who wears his dark hair floppy and his expensive-looking shirts with their top button casually undone, had a lot of experience in the food industry. His grandfather had founded the Ruchi Group, a corporate powerhouse in India with offshoots in steel, real estate, and agriculture; his father had started Ruchi Soya, a $3 billion oilseed processor that had been Shahra’s training ground.
By the time Shahra was introduced to VertiVegies founder Veera Sekaran at a friend’s party in 2017, he was hungry to make his own entrepreneurial mark. A previous attempt had involved sourcing organic food from around
The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Mohali, has developed the technology for aquaponic cultivation of plants, which is not only environment-friendly but also has high socio-economic benefits for the farming community.
Aquaponics is an emerging technique in which both fish as well as plants complement each other to sustain and grow. The fish waste provides organic food for plants and the plants naturally filter the water which is used to replenish the fish tank. There is no requirement for the use of soil and fertilisers.
“The process is completely organic, increases the productivity of the given land, saves water and also augments the farmers’ income,” Dr PK Khosla, director C-DAC, said, adding: “The technology has been developed and suitable protocols have been evolved for scientists and farmers,” he added.
A pilot project to develop the technology was awarded to C-DAC
In November 2018, I travelled to Guangzhou, a city of about 14 million people in southern China. Late autumn is the time for making lap yuk, a type of preserved pork that is a local speciality, and across town I would often spot slabs of meat hanging from high-rise apartment balconies, tied up with string and swaying next to shirts and sheets left out to dry. To make lap yuk, a piece of raw pork belly is soaked in a blend of rice wine, salt, soy sauce and spices, then hung out to cure in the damp, cold autumn air. The fat becomes translucent and imparts a savoury-sweet taste to any stir-fried vegetable dish. A relative of mine claims that only southern China can make preserved pork like this. The secret is the native spores and bacteria that are carried on the wind there.
Farms could contribute billions more dollars to the U.S. economy with the help of precision agriculture technology, but this can’t happen without more broadband, said experts during a National Telecommunications and Information Administration webinar yesterday.
Titled “Smart Agriculture: Driving Innovation in Rural America,” the webinar featured, among other speakers, Megan Nelson, an economic analyst with the American Farm Bureau Federation. She shared research showing that U.S. farms could generate $18 billion to $23 billion annually if they had high-speed connectivity and adopted the latest technologies.
“We need broadband access,” Nelson said during the webinar. “We need accurate broadband maps … We can’t have spotty service because there’s a rainy day.”
Both Nelson and Dennis Buckmaster, agricultural and biological engineering professor at Purdue University, outlined numerous ways technology can boost American farms.
Buckmaster, for instance, covered a wide range of farming tech that can do everything from tracking weather conditions, which
