Silicon Valley’s on-farm autonomous driving start-up Bear Flag Robotics has been acquired by John Deere for US$250 million. Bear Flag Robotics makes autonomous driving technology with a difference – it’s compatible with existing agricultural machinery. In January the Californian agtech firm raised US$7.9 million in a seed extension that took its total revenue raised to US$12.5 million. The new deal with John Deere accelerates the development and delivery of automation and autonomy on the farm and supports John Deere’s long-term strategy to create smarter machines with advanced technology to support individual customer needs. “Deere views autonomy as an important step…
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.
A new Canadian company specialising in sustainable agriculture – Gigrow Urban Farms, has announced an investment of CA$13 million for the construction of its first urban farm. Located in the Varennes industrial park, the 24,000-square-foot facility will become one of Québec’s largest urban agriculture projects. Horizontal rotary cultivation – Gravity Injection Growing Gigrow Urban Farms will use its partner Gigrow’s innovative Québec-developed technology called injection rotary garden. The unusual indoor system uses gravity to rotate plants around an illuminated drum to maximise photosynthesis whilst oxygenating roots and minimising required space. Plants are kept at a highly controlled temperature and humidity…
UK agtech start-up Small Robot Company (SRC) announced the launch of its latest crowdfunding campaign today and immediately hit its launch target of £2 million. To date the start-up has secured £9 million in funding including £4.4 million from its previous Crowdcube rounds, and £1.56 million in government Innovate UK grants. The new funding will finance SRC’s service for farmer and corporate customers with Per Plant data, and commercialisation of its Per Plant Action capability. SRC’s mission is to help farmers feed the world while regenerating the planet. Using robotics and artificial intelligence, SRC has created an entirely new model…
Cultivate is an AgriTech ‘pre-accelerator’ programme helping to take participating UK businesses to the next level. Delivered by Harper Adams University staff and industry experts, whilst supported by Barclays Eagle Labs, the programme has drawn a diverse cohort to its virtual sessions. The programme is working with 10 Agri-tech and Agri-food businesses selected from across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and is now well underway, with participants already more than half way through their sessions. Cultivate Project Manager Emma Cantillion – herself a rural business owner – said: “By helping these businesses focus on where they started, where they are…
Innovate UK is funding a newly commissioned project to establish a proven method for the precision application of fungicides and biopesticides. Pesticides negatively impact air, water and soil quality as well as the health of animals, birds and fish. SprayBot will investigate how combining early disease detection techniques such as imaging and spore sensors with robotic machinery can create a system to improve the application of fungicides and biopesticides, with the aim of reducing overall pesticide use. SprayBot will be delivered as a three year feasibility study by Crop Health and Protection (CHAP) – one of four UK Agri-Tech Centres,…
SatSure, a decision intelligence company based in Bangalore (India) and St. Gallen (Switzerland), has launched two new patent-pending data products after rigorous testing and expert validation to address the challenges around soil moisture and crop monitoring at scale. These will provide further useful insight to the firm’s customers making critical decisions in banking, financial services and insurance. India is the 2nd largest agricultural producer in the world but is a country faced with many agricultural challenges, these include an increasingly erratic monsoon season and diverse climate conditions. Drought monitoring, water resource management and irrigation scheduling are crucial for high crop…
McCulla (Ireland) Ltd is one of Northern Ireland‘s largest food transport companies with 235 employees and a cold storage facility measuring almost 8,500 square metres. This month the logistics company is going live with biomethane production, powering ten Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) lorries. Each year 17,500 tons of food waste, collected from 41 Lidl supermarket stores, will be converted into natural gas at McCulla’s expanded biogas plant in Lisburn (near Belfast). 450 cubic metres of biogas will be processed into biomethane every single hour. The journey towards a McCulla biogas plant began in 2017 with expertise from WELTEC BIOPOWER –…
As the world leader in providing aircraft engines, systems and avionics, GE is no stranger to delivering complex aerial solutions. Now, together with professional drone surveying specialists – Microdrones, GE is entering the professional UAV market with the launch of the GE industrial drone line. The pair will enter into a worldwide licensing partnership that will see Microdrones bring the GE industrial drone line to market globally. As an international aerial mapping technology company, Microdrones delivers complete and reliable mapping systems specifically developed for precision agriculture, surveying, mining, construction, oil & gas industries. Microdrones already has UAVs addressing the needs…
Two years ago ADAMA Ltd. a global leader in crop protection, partnered with precision agriculture software specialists Agremo to launch ‘ADAMA Eagle Eye’ – a drone analytics farming platform, now the companies are rolling it out to six new countries. The joint solution offers an advanced AI-based analysis of aerial data and imagery that helps growers protect yields more efficiently through user-friendly maps, statistics and other practical tools. Yalon Perelman, AgTech Project Manager at ADAMA elaborates “In 2021, ADAMA Eagle Eye powered by Agremo, will roll-out in 6 new countries in addition to the US. Agremo’s pilot network makes it…
LeddarTech and Cognata, Ltd. have announced the integration of Cognata’s autonomous driving simulation software with LeddarTech’s sensor fusion and perception technology – ‘LeddarVision’. The companies state that their joint venture will accelerate the testing and validation of self-driving agriculture vehicles. Autonomous harvesting systems are seeing huge demand from farm owners around the world with Russia’s use of the technology already leading the way. The joint offering of a highly realistic simulation and testing platform for autonomous vehicle (AV) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) combines the market’s leading autonomous vehicle perception training and sensor fusion along with simulation software on…
