One of the most time-consuming (and necessary) parts of gardening is weeding. Thankfully, the guy who invented Roomba is on it. Meet Tertill.
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Futurist Thomas Frey predicts farming drones, driverless streets
What will Iowa’s farms look like when the combines and tractors drive themselves?
How will Des Moines’ banking and insurance sectors fare when supercomputers run financial markets?
Where will Iowans live when a self-driving car can take them anywhere with the tap of a smartphone?
These are the kind of questions Thomas Frey ponders.
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Indigo Is Mapping Plant Microbiomes To Produce The Next Generation Of Crops
David Perry thinks the secret to agricultural challenges like drought resistance might lie in the bacteria that live in a bunch of grass on the beach.
That’s just one example that Indigo, a company that analyzes the microbiomes of plants to produce seed coatings that impart various attributes, is looking into as a way to combat difficult conditions for various crops. Indigo is launching today after having raised $56 million in financing over the course of its life.
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Modern Farm Tractors Feature Everything But the Farmer
As Detroit car makers and Silicon Valley tech giants vie to bring driverless cars to U.S. roads, one of the world’s largest tractor makers is looking to do the same down on the farm.
Case IH, the agricultural-machinery unit of CNH Industrial NV, this week unveiled a sleek, aggressive-looking red-and-black machine at the annual Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa.
Continue reading… “Modern Farm Tractors Feature Everything But the Farmer”
7 robots replacing farm workers around the world
In the future, robots will increasingly replace farm workers, using artificial intelligence to plant, grow and harvest our food.
In fact, many farms are already using fleets of robots, which can tend to fruits and veggies more efficiently than a human can.
Here’s a look at seven machines that are currently aiding farmers around the world.
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USDA predicts global food insecurity will drop to 6% of world population
Given projections for lower food prices and rising incomes, food security for the 76 low- and middle-income countries included in this demand-oriented framework is expected to improve through 2026. The share of the population that is food insecure is projected to fall from 17 percent in 2016 to 6 percent in 2026. The number of food-insecure people is projected to fall markedly, 59 percent, to 251 million in 2026 which matches the decline in the intensity of food insecurity, at the aggregate level.
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IKEA wants to help restaurants build their own indoor farms
The furniture chain is getting into the sustainable farming industry, one restaurant kitchen at a time.
Swedish home furnishing giant IKEA is known for its simple, affordable furniture that populates dorm rooms and studio apartments across the country. Now, the furniture chain is hoping to get into the sustainable farming industry, one restaurant kitchen at a time.
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Is the future of farming in shipping containers ?
Refrigerated shipping containers used to transport cold goods. Inside the 320-square-foot boxes, it’s a relatively balmy 63 degrees, and the humid air is heavy with the earthy smell of greens. Filling each box are 256 neat vertical towers of plants, bathed in a noonday-intense pink light.
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Robots, drones and cows that milk themselves
These cows are in no hurry and meander to the dairy. They stop as they please along the way. Chew cud. Moo. Drop pats. Moo again. They nudge the soft earth or a companion before snorting and continuing on up through the paddocks to the shed.
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Monsanto is cultivating a rose that won’t wilt
Monsanto is using a genetic technology that can feed plants through vase water for anti-aging technology for flowers . The St. Louis biotech company, known for its transgenic corn and soybeans, and for being the target of anti-GMO campaigners, disclosed in a patent application that it’s now testing a new way of stopping roses, carnations, and petunias from wilting.
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Japanese automated farm expanding in size and types of vegetables
Spread, a Japanese company in the agricultural industry, is expanding into the 21st century. Spread’s automated vertical farm has gained it a lot of fame and now it looks to open new locations and grow new kinds of produce. Vertical farming is quickly emerging across the world and some are even moving into supermarket’s produce section.
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Skyfarms, Wind-powered, vertical structures, are the future of agriculture
The future of farming is coming to the big city. Skyfarm, a hyperboloid tower that combines different farming techniques, from aquaponics to traditional soil based methods, in a bamboo structure that generates wind energy, won an award at the 2014 World Architecture Festival’s Future Projects Experimental category. The design was praised by the jury as a “thorough, believable, and beautiful project.”
Continue reading… “Skyfarms, Wind-powered, vertical structures, are the future of agriculture”