Author: Anthony James

Picking asparagus spears is hard, back-breaking work – so why not let a robot do it? The UK agricultural sector was already primed for a new approach to fruit and vegetable harvesting as it approached Brexit, with the inevitable labour shortages expected to follow, and then Covid-19 hit, further straining the available pool of workers. Recruiting asparagus pickers has proven particularly challenging, given the precise nature of the task where spears have to be individually selected and cut just below the soil, as well as the enormous quantities that have to be gathered in a short season lasting just two to three…

Georgia-based Cybercorps LLC is to offer real-time crop health data to farmers, after signing a licensing agreement with NASA to use its patented Compact Thermal Imager (CTI) technology, developed at the space agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA, CTI provides precise spatial resolution of around 262ft (80m) per pixel, improving on older instruments that provided less detailed resolution at 3,280ft (1 km) per pixel. The technology, conceived at Goddard by CTI principal investigator Murzy Jhabvala, is small enough to fit on a ‘CubeSat’ – a new type of miniaturized satellite increasingly used for science missions and technology demonstrations. Though tiny in…

With poor planting conditions in Autumn followed by a Spring drought and more recent heavy rains, the UK is facing a tough harvest. However, the challenges don’t end once grain is safely stored – uncontrolled temperature and moisture levels can lead to pests and mould. Unfortunately, accurately monitoring the condition of stored grain is fraught with difficulty, contributing to global post-harvest grain losses of more than 20%. Step forward the UK Government’s official innovation agency, Innovate UK, which has provided £250,000 in funding for a project that aims to tackle the problem. It sees technology start-up Crover Ltd, Agri-EPI Centre and…

AGCO, a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of agricultural machinery and solutions, has agreed to acquire 151 Research, the Canadian firm behind GrainViz, a post-harvest monitoring platform that gives farmers advanced insight into the moisture content and conditions of the grain in their steel storage bins. The acquisition will help AGCO create new technology solutions for grain customers. GrainViz, which is based on an imaging technology first created for the bio-medical industry at the University of Manitoba, already enables customers to view in real time the complete moisture content of every bushel; identify the exact weight of…

Syngenta and NK Seeds have launched the Cropwise Seed Selector, which provides data-driven seed recommendations to help farmers make more informed decisions and maximize profit potential. Syngenta says Cropwise eliminates a key issue facing the digitisation of agriculture, which is ensuring different systems developed in the market can connect with one another to provide growers with quality data. The tool builds on technology that combines artificial intelligence, two decades of agronomic information and a simple user interface. Along with the added benefit of being connected to a larger network of digital technologies from Syngenta, the Cropwise Seed Selector includes several new…

This year an EU grant supported company called ‘ZELP’ (Zero Emissions Livestock Project) is conducting large-scale pilots of its patented wearable device for cattle. Their ‘cow mask’ has been designed by brothers Argentinian Francisco and Patricio Norris to reduce livestock methane (CH₄) emissions. Fitted over an animal’s snout, the device captures exhaled methane and uses a special catalytic converter to turn it into a combination of carbon dioxide and water vapour. Equipped with sensors, it also collects hundreds of thousands of data points daily to help producers improve yields and animal health, while reducing labour costs. The mask uses Bluetooth Low Energy…

A £5 million research project led by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and involving nine countries – from Scandinavia to the Middle East – is seeking to revolutionise the use of precision technology in sheep and goat farming. ‘TechCare’ will be the biggest study of its kind for small ruminants and will focus on improving management of welfare, as well as performance. In addition to SRUC, Moredun Research Institute and Breedr Ltd in the UK, sixteen other partners from eight other countries – Ireland, Norway, Spain, Italy, France, Romania, Greece and Israel – are involved, covering meat sheep, dairy sheep and…

Norway and UK-based Saga Robotics has raised €9.5 million in its latest round of funding from international investors, including the Norwegian sovereign climate investment company Nysnø Climate Investments, London-based ADM Capital Europe LLP, and Rabo Food & Agri Innovation Fund – the investment arm of world-leading Dutch agricultural bank, Rabobank. These lead investors were also joined by a group of Norwegian investors including Propagator Venture. Despite the agricultural sector employing roughly 1.1 billion people worldwide, it continues to face labour shortages, which have only increased further during the coronavirus pandemic, impacting overall food production. The need for environmentally conscious, sustainable…

Californian agtech startup FarmSense has developed a new digital insect monitoring sensor for remote field monitoring and real-time insect classification. FlightSensor uses novel optical sensor technology that connects wirelessly to the cloud to automate the process of real-time insect classification and counting, providing immediate access for farmers to make mission-critical decisions on crop and pest control. The new monitoring system will help farmers lower pesticide and insecticide use by optimising their application in both space and time. The sensor comes in a variety of sizes, and the algorithm can be adjusted depending on what insects a farmer needs to monitor. Machine learning…

The University of Florida has pioneered a method that uses artificial intelligence to find a disease early so growers who produce summer squash can keep it under control. Early detection gives farmers a fighting chance at a better crop. Summer and winter squash are grown commercially throughout the US state, particularly in southeast and southwest Florida. In 2019, Florida growers harvested 7,700 acres of squash, with a production value of US$35.4 million, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. But powdery mildew disease, common throughout the world, can decrease yields. For the study, UF/IFAS researchers used a sensing system attached…