Legacy technology systems in the agricultural sector are often slow and inefficient. They typically can’t work together across the growing and more complex agricultural supply chain at a time when more data than ever is being gathered to provide solutions. Now the Linux Foundation, supported by its leading agricultural and technology members, has launched the AgStack Foundation – an open source 21st century digital infrastructure project for the world’s agriculture ecosystem. The aim of the AgStack Foundation is that it will improve global agriculture efficiency through the creation, maintenance and enhancement of free, reusable, open and specialized digital infrastructure for…
Author: Matt Peskett
Matt Peskett
Matt has worked in digital publishing and media for over two decades across the science, technology, food and agricultural sectors. With a lifelong passion for growing his own food, Matt also produces 300kg giant pumpkins for exhibition and volunteers with the Royal Horticultural Society. He has a sizeable horticultural social media presence and has been a finalist in the Garden Media Guild's blog of the year and social media awards. Matt also dabbles in start-up investment with companies like Small Robot Company, Drone Ag and RootWave.
Precision AI, a computer vision and robotics company providing herbicide-reducing farming practices, has announced the closing of $20 million in equity and grant funding. The financing will support the advancement of its disruptive precision farming platform which deploys swarms of artificially intelligent drones to massively reduce herbicide use in row crop agriculture. Precision AI’s drone-based computer vision technology enables precision application of herbicides to individual weeds which makes it perfect for row crop farming. By spraying only weeds and avoiding the crop, yields can be maintained at a fraction of the chemical cost. Ultimately, the company’s vision is to deploy hives…
UK-based organic vegetable grower, Home Farm Nacton, has taken delivery of a Robotti 150D from Danish manufacturer Agrointelli. The first robotic implement-carrier in the UK, the Robotti is now fully operational on the estate. Producing both organic and conventional vegetables, Home Farm Nacton was looking for ways to adopt more technology into the business, and the Robotti 150D ticked all of the boxes. The autonomous machine is capable of carrying out seeding, weeding, harrowing, grass cutting, rotavating, power harrowing and spraying. The model at Home Farm has two Kubota 75 HP Diesel or bio fuel engines; the left engine propels the…
British agtech start-up, Small Robot Company (SRC) is already well known for its intelligent farming robots Tom, Dick and Harry. Today the firm has announced that field monitoring robot ‘Tom’ is commercially available and entering service on UK farms. Manufactured in Northumberland by Tharsus, Tom will also be going into 5G trials in Dorset in the autumn in the £8 million 5G RuralDorset project. SRC’s first service using Tom will be ‘per-plant weeding’ – a world-first milestone. This is now in field trials, with Tom scanning arable fields to detect and map each individual weed, with robot weeding prototype ‘Dick’…
Chinese agricultural drone and smart robotics company, EAVision Technologies, is a leader in autonomous crop protection with systems deployed in China, Japan, Korea, and Africa. Now the company has raised US$30 million in its Series C funding round. The firm’s aerial unmanned vehicles (UAVs) combine autonomous navigation, AI visual recognition and precision spraying to enable crop protection even in challenging geographical environments and mountainous terrains. At the core of EAVision is an exceptional combination of stereo vision sensors and algorithms that enable its UAVs to navigate challenging environments. UAVs and the challenge of hillside farming In China, mountainous farming accounts…
Beyond Meat, Inc. is one of the fastest growing food companies in the United States offering a portfolio of plant-based meats. Beyond Meat products are designed to have the same taste and texture as animal-based meat while being better for people and the planet – no genetically modified organisms (GMOs), bioengineered ingredients, hormones, antibiotics, or cholesterol are included. As of December 31, 2020, Beyond Meat had products available at approximately 122,000 retail and foodservice outlets in over 80 countries worldwide. Today the company announced that the new version of its iconic Beyond Burger® will arrive in grocery stores nationwide beginning…
StartLife is Europe’s longest running and leading agrifoodtech accelerator. Its mission is to accelerate agrifoodtech startups shaping a sustainable food system. Since 2010 the accelerator has supported over 300 agrifoodtech startups that have raised over €180 million follow-on capital. Now two new StartLife corporate collaborations have been announced, one with Icos Capital – a market-leading collaborative venture capital firm, the other with Kubota – Japan’s leading agricultural manufacturer. Investment Partner: Icos Capital Icos Capital has joined StartLife as investor partner. Since 2005, Icos Capital has backed 20 ambitious startups and scale-ups at the intersection of digital and sustainable industry. The…
The PALESSE GS12 combine harvester enjoys a 75% market share in Belarus for agricultural manufacturer Gomselmash. The machine complies with all EU standards whilst also being manufactured directly in Russia, China and Kazakhstan. This week it has been announced that ALL Russian made GS12s, built under the Bryanskselmash name (a JV between Belarus and Russia) will now be fitted as standard with Cognitive Pilot’s AI-based autonomous driving technology ‘Cognitive Agro Pilot’. Cognitive Pilot is an autonomous driving technology joint venture of Sberbank and Cognitive Technologies group. The company’s Cognitive Agro Pilot is an autonomous AI-based driving system for farming equipment…
Commercial tuna fishing generates more than US$40 billion in economic activity each year. A single mature Pacific bluefin tuna can command a price in excess of US$1.5million. Recently, as part of a drive towards more sustainable management of fish stocks, fishing vessels have been required to accurately count and report the number of young bluefin tuna caught in the wild – where they go on to be used for breeding at fish farms. Counting fish is also necessary in the aquaculture industry where it is essential to know the number of fish inside a holding net in order to control production volume…
US-based drone technology firm AgEagle Aerial Systems Inc. has been in business for over a decade. This week the company announced the acquisition of an award-winning aerial intelligence solutions company – Measure Global Inc. in a combination cash and stock transaction valued at approximately US$45 million. This latest acquisition by AgEagle is the company’s third and aligns with AgEagle’s core strategy to ‘acquire and integrate only the best-in-class drone technologies required to deliver American-made, tailored drone solutions to the world’. Ground Control – Measure’s SaaS solution Founded in 2014, Measure is an aerial intelligence company with operations in Washington, D.C. and Austin,…
