Technology is Transforming Efficiency and Sustainability in the Fresh Produce Industry

The Fertilizer Gap Is Real — Here Is the Tech Closing It

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 21:39:21 GMT

The ripple effects of global conflict are landing squarely on the farm, where rising fertilizer prices and tightening supply chains are forcing difficult decisions. For many growers, the math no longer works the way it used to.

“More than 80% of rice, cotton and peanut producers reported they cannot afford all required fertilizer,” says Arthur Erickson, CEO of Hylio, underscoring the scale of the challenge facing production agriculture. While specialty crop-specific data remains limited, the broader trend shows that farmers are being pushed to do more with less.

That shift is accelerating interest in precision agriculture tools, particularly drones designed to apply inputs with far greater accuracy than traditional equipment.

Erickson describes the approach as fundamentally data-driven. Farmers can deploy scouting drones or satellite imagery to assess field variability, identifying exactly where fertilizer or crop protection is needed — and where it isn’t.

“You could analyze the pixels essentially across the imagery on your farm, and then, of course, just target those specific areas,” he says. “In that way, just being a lot more surgical … would lead to an overall reduction in your input needed to get the same or better result.”

That level of precision matters most when budgets are squeezed. If growers are cutting fertilizer use by 30% to 50%, blanket applications can translate into wasted product in some areas and insufficient nutrients in others. Targeted spraying allows them to stretch limited resources without sacrificing yield potential.

Arthur Erickson, CEO for Hylio, says farmers can deploy scouting drones or satellite imagery to assess field variability, identifying exactly where fertilizer or crop protection is needed — and where it isn’t.

(Photo courtesy of Hylio)

“You have to have the data,” Erickson says. “You also have to have a precise enough application tool to do right by that data.”

Traditional equipment, he adds, often lacks that granularity. Even with strong field intelligence, a 120-foot boom sprayer or aerial application cannot match the pinpoint accuracy of drones capable of treating small, defined zones.

An Accessible Alternative

The economic pressure extends beyond inputs. Erickson points to a “double whammy” of rising costs paired with falling commodity prices, leaving farmers with less revenue and higher expenses per acre.

“What we’re seeing is a huge reduction in new purchases of traditional, larger equipment,” he says, noting that tractor sales are down significantly in some regions.

In contrast, drones are emerging as a more accessible alternative. Erickson estimates that a fleet of agricultural drones can cost a fraction of traditional machinery while covering thousands of acres per day.

“Instead of spending $500,000 on a tractor, you could spend $100,000 and still have a fleet,” he says. “So, four or five times cheaper in terms of capital cost and also on the operating cost side.”

That affordability is helping drive adoption even in a tight financial environment. In fact, Erickson describes the current moment as a turning point for farmers who may have been hesitant to embrace new technology.

“This was kind of a big enough shock to actually convince them to try something ‘new’ or untested as drone technology,” he says. “Once they use it, they’re going to realize it is pretty darn effective.”

Eye on the Horizon

Supply chain uncertainty is another factor reshaping decision-making. From COVID-19 disruptions to ongoing geopolitical tensions, farmers are increasingly concerned about access to equipment and replacement parts.

“Half the conversations we have with farmers come up like, ‘Hey, if I do buy your drone, where are your parts coming from?’” Erickson says. “Is it one-day shipping, or is it three months’ shipping for a replacement part?”

That concern is driving interest in domestically produced technology. Erickson notes that Hylio has seen demand increase during past disruptions as farmers sought alternatives to overseas supply chains.

“It’s been one thing after another,” he says, citing COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and current tensions involving Iran. “Even the people that normally wouldn’t pay attention are being forced to think about that every day.”

Incentives Serve as a Catalyst

Public funding may also help accelerate adoption. Several states already offer grants for precision agriculture tools, and federal programs tied to the next farm bill could expand access to subsidized loans or direct funding.

“These grants are generally funding precision agriculture tools,” Erickson says, adding that many programs include Buy American requirements that favor domestically manufactured equipment.

For growers navigating today’s volatile environment, those incentives could lower the barrier to entry for technologies that promise both cost savings and efficiency gains.

The implications extend beyond the farm gate. Reduced planting or lower input use could tighten supply and push food prices higher in the coming months.

“There’s going to be a price hike,” Erickson says. “I mean, the number of farmers that literally can’t plant crops this year or they’re severely cutting back on the acreage, there’s a pretty good chance [of] significant price increases.”

While the exact trajectory remains uncertain, the direction is clear: As global pressures reshape agriculture, tools that help farmers maximize every input are moving from optional to essential.

Agronomist in Your Pocket: How AI Is Transforming Global Pest Management

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 18:59:39 GMT

For over a decade, a dedicated team at Iowa State University has been working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and agriculture with a mission to provide farmers with the tools they need to stay ahead of an ever-changing landscape of threats. Led by Arti Singh and Soumik Sarkar, this research has culminated in the development of the PestIDBot, a sophisticated AI companion designed to act as an “expert crop advisor or extension agent in your pocket.”

By combining massive image databases with conversational AI, the team is moving agricultural protection from a reactive struggle to a proactive, precision-based science.

A Decade of Data-Driven Identification

The core of the technology lies in two specialized applications: Insect ID and Weed ID, the result of training massive AI models on staggering amounts of data. The Insect ID app has been trained on 16 million images and can identify roughly 4,000 different species, ranging from common pollinators and predators to invasive threats. Similarly, the Weed ID app utilizes 15 million images to identify 1,600 weed species, including noxious and invasive varieties.

While these models are global in scope, they have been fine-tuned specifically for regions.

“If a farmer in Iowa does a web search on a pest, they might get information relevant to the Southern U.S. that isn’t applicable to an Iowa farmer,” Singh says. By narrowing the model’s focus to local threats and incorporating management practices vetted by University Extension scientists, the tool provides personalized, actionable information tailored to the user’s specific location.

Image of spotted lantern fly egg masses on tree bark is identified in PestIDBot.

(Image courtesy of Iowa State University)

From Identification to Conversation

The true breakthrough of the PestIDBot is the integration of identification with a conversational chatbot. In the field, a farmer can take a real-time photo of an unknown insect or upload an image taken previously. Once the AI identifies the pest — even in early stages, such as egg masses — the chatbot allows the user to ask contextual follow-up questions.

“Rather than searching for a human expert while the clock is ticking, you can ask your first questions directly to the app,” Sarkar says.

Users can inquire about treatment timing, the necessity of spraying or specific management steps based on their observations. For example, if the app identifies the eggs of an invasive species like the spotted lanternfly, it doesn’t just provide taxonomic details; it can advise the user to contact specific state agencies, such as the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

Solving the Green-on-Green Challenge

Building an AI that works in a controlled lab is one thing, but the field presents chaotic variables. Sarkar notes that early models lacked the robustness to handle cases like green-on-green (pests on leaves) or brown-on-brown (pests on bark or soil) scenarios. To ensure the system is trustworthy and reliable, the team implemented strict guardrails to prevent hallucinations — where an AI confidently provides an incorrect answer.

These safety measures include out-of-distribution detection, which allows the AI to recognize when it is looking at something it wasn’t trained for (like a human face) and simply say, “I don’t know.” Furthermore, when the model is unsure, it is programmed to provide several likely options rather than a single potentially wrong identification, allowing the farmer to consult with experts using a narrowed set of possibilities.

Shown from left, Iowa State University’s Arti Singh and Soumik Sarkar are part of a team working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and agriculture to provide farmers with the tools they need to stay ahead of an ever-changing landscape of threats.

(Photo courtesy of Iowa State University)

The Global Horizon: The BRIDGE Project

The next frontier for the team is the AI Engage (BRIDGE) project, funded by the National Science Foundation. While insects and weeds are well documented, identifying crop diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and fungi is a much tougher problem due to the limited quality and expert-verified data.

By partnering with researchers in Australia, Japan and India, the team is building a global dataset of disease images. This international collaboration is critical for biosecurity.

“Threats emerging in Africa or Asia will eventually show up on our shores,” Sarkar warns.

By training models on global data now, U.S. farmers can be prepared for future threats before they arrive, shifting the agricultural industry from a reactive stance to a proactive one.

Vision for Sustainable Stewardship

Beyond technical identification, the team is driven by a passion for sustainability and the future of the agricultural workforce. By enabling precision-based farming, the PestIDBot can help farmers pinpoint exactly which part of a field needs treatment. This hyperprecise approach reduces the need for blanket chemical spraying, lowering input costs for farmers while protecting water systems and overall environmental health.

Finally, Singh and Sarkar are using this technology to make “agriculture cool again” for the next generation. Through workshops and gamified modules for K-12 and 4-H youth, they are fostering land stewardship and encouraging young people to see themselves as future innovators in both ag and AI. As Singh reflects, empowering a kid in a front yard to identify an invasive species can be the first step in a statewide defense against agricultural threats.

Automate or Relocate: The $1,600-Per-Acre Crisis Facing U.S. Growers

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 21:17:23 GMT

Walt Duflock, senior vice president of innovation with Western Growers, says it’s a challenging time for ag labor. While the domestic labor supply has dwindled, more growers have used the H-2A guestworker program, he says.

“Every time we turn around, we’re talking about labor shortages in the fresh produce industry,” he says. “How bad is it? It is bad, and it’s not getting better.”

Duflock, whose organization represents around 2,300 growers, joined “AgriTalk” to discuss the current state of ag labor and the challenges to automation. Duflock says those growers using the H-2A guestworker program have additional regulatory costs, which have caused wages to skyrocket.

“A lot of folks said, boy, when we get to $20 an hour for farm labor, that’s going to be Armageddon,” he says. “Well, we zip right past that with H-2A because you throw an adverse effect wage rate, which is the minimum wage for those folks, into the mix. That’s almost $20. And then you house them, you transport them and you feed them. That’s $28 to $30.So the fastest growing percentage of California labor right now is the highest cost part of it. And there’s no end in sight.”

Duflock says an analysis by California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, calculated the true costs of ag labor. In 2005, that figure was $109 an acre. In 2017, that number jumped to $977 an acre. In 2024, that figure came to $1,600 an acre.

“Same farmer, same operator, same crop, 20 years apart, $1,600 per acre per year,” he says of which is about 80% in labor.

So, what is the industry to do? Duflock says it’s simple: automate or relocate. He says using the Census of Agriculture data from 1997 to 2022 and then projected to 2052, he estimates the state of California will lose a significant number of farms.

“We are forecast to lose one-third of our acres in California and over half of our farmers in 50 years,” he says. “So, we will be down to less than 20 million acres from 2029. We will be down to 43,000 farmers from 87.”

Duflock says a lot of that attrition is due to production moving outside the U.S. to other countries with less regulatory pressure, better water availability and a steady stream of labor. But, for U.S. growers, technology is a strong path forward.

“Right now, where we’re making progress is on the non-harvest activities,” he says. “That’s about one-third of the hours.”

Duflock says growers paid about $16.3 billion for about 850 million hours of labor. And automating the non-harvest tasks is a start, but harvest is a real challenge, as it makes up the lion’s share of the labor needed.

“We’ve effectively got zero percent of fresh harvest automated at the moment,” he says. “That is 560 million hours that we bought last year.”

Duflock says he sees the potential for about 15% to 20% of harvest automation in the next few years, but to get there, there will need to be industry investment.

“We need private-public, and we need some new investment strategies for harvest,” he says.

What Does the Future Hold for Labor in an Ag Tech World?

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 21:59:38 GMT

Editor’s note: This is the latest story in a series exploring the current state of labor in the fresh produce industry. This is the second of two pieces exploring the role of technology and its relationship to ag labor.

Technology’s role in farming is nothing new.

From the advent of plowing to autonomous equipment, it’s easy to think of ag tech as human versus machine. But some in the fresh produce industry say the relationship between technology and labor is more nuanced.

“There is a well-established and well-founded focus on agricultural technology as labor-replacing,” says Peter O’Driscoll, executive director of the Equitable Food Initiative. “As workers were trying to improve their wages and conditions, they saw mechanization as a direct threat as a labor replacement.”

Now the circumstances are different; it’s easy to think automation is a threat to ag workers today, but that’s not the case, he says. There’s an ag labor shortage due to an aging workforce not being replaced by the next generation, and there’s more dependency on the H-2A guest worker program.

“Many growers are thinking, ‘If I get robots, I won’t have to hire workers,’” O’Driscoll says. “But when you get into the details, it’s never that simple.”

Instead, he sees the future of ag tech as more supporting of labor versus being an outright labor replacement.

“It’s inevitable, it’s obvious in a labor shortage, why the industry can and should be focusing on introducing new agricultural technologies,” he says. “But how often is that question asked around the difference between investing in labor-replacing versus labor-enhancing?”

And ag labor will play a very different role in the future of these new technologies, says Gabriel Youtsey, chief innovation officer for University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“The question is, as new tech comes, who is going to pick the food?” he says. “It’ll be different than what it’s been, and what is the nature of the workers’ relationship to technology going to be on the farm?”

Different workforce

Tim Bucher, CEO and co-founder of agricultural technology company Agtonomy, says that while the future might look bleak for growers with a dwindling labor pool, there will be a significant shift in how the work will be done in the future and who will do the work.

Bucher says in lieu of advertising for tractor drivers, some of his customers who struggle to fill roles advertise for ag tech operators with video game experience.

“What automation is doing is bringing a new labor force into the picture that the technology now excites them,” he says. “It’s Farmville for real.”

And that’s exactly what Steve Mantle, founder and CEO of innov8.ag, an agricultural technology company providing data-driven solutions for growers, sees too. Mantle says he and innov8.ag have been working with a Ph.D. candidate from MIT on some really interesting predictive modeling for labor. But what’s interesting is this student didn’t grow up on a farm and is still interested in tackling the challenges facing agriculture. He says there’s a bright future in agriculture for a different type of workforce.

“I feel like there is so much of an opportunity to take your gaming type kids and your kids that came out of the womb with an iPad,” he says. “It comes back to how they think in data, even though they don’t necessarily think about it in these games and tactics and how many points do I have, and so on. How do we help them?”

Training

Tyler Niday, CEO and co-founder of Bonsai Robotics, says as more and more automation becomes available and accessible, so too does the question of the labor needed to run this equipment.

“A lot of growers actually say: ‘Hey, who do I need to hire to run these machines? Do I need a foreman with a college degree who knows a little more, who’s a little more tech savvy?’” Niday says.

And, O’Driscoll says, even if agriculture moves more toward labor replacement, there’s still going to be a strong need for human labor.

“Who’s going to train that robot? Who’s going to manage that robot?” O’Driscoll says. “So, the reality is, we’ve got a shrinking domestic workforce, we’ve got increasing demand for the product and so whatever we do in the form of automation, even if it’s labor replacing automation, you’re still going to need a workforce that has the skills to interface with this new technology.”

Youtsey says this is one of the goals of the newly formed California AgTech Alliance: to establish training and curriculum to educate the next generation of ag laborers with more of an emphasis on technology. He says it’s taking the form of drone training and general ag tech classes at different colleges in the state with the goal to offer certifications for different aspects of ag tech.

“As new skills like drone flying and robotic weeding and handling start to come online, and that gets added into the stackable certificate program, along with very basic things like English, mechanics, diesel mechanic, basic math proficiency, which are actually the three top things cited by ag employers as the things that they need from their workers,” he says. “They’ll be able to demonstrate higher-order skills that will translate into technology.”

Youtsey says, however, there’s a bit of an art to predicting the next emerging solutions and the skills needed to operate that technology.

“We’re sort of trying to skate to where the puck is going to be while we’re also supporting the now needs, which are English, basic math and mechanics,” he says.

And, Youtsey says, there’s also a focus on artificial intelligence and, therefore a greater need for AI-proficient workers.

“We’ll start to see the replacement of different kinds of workers with AI-based solutions, so we also actually need an AI-enabled workforce that knows how to use AI tools,” Youtsey explains. “We will have to learn how to harness those tools to be super producers. And if done right, they’ll create outsized productivity for one person.”

An AgSocio equipment operator is shown with a Farmwise Vulcan intrarow weeding machine.

(Photo courtesy of Equitable Food Initiative)

Easy Tasks

Mantle says a lot of what he sees in the immediate future with labor is the ability to streamline efficiencies throughout the farm with different types of automation. It’s not necessarily going to be the addition of a large piece of equipment, but more the ripple effect of smaller changes.

“A lot of the work that we’ve been doing, it’s useful and it’s not super sticky, is what are growers truly tossing and turning about at night, and it’s their finances,” Mantle says. “And what’s the biggest part of their finances? It’s their labor. There’s all this noise around tech and how it can help save the world for them. So, in a grower’s mind, what’s the role of human labor? How do we evolve it on the farm, given all this technology?”

He likens this to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He says it’s a little different for growers with bankers and payroll as the most basic need, working up to fertility and automation, but he says many growers can’t get to those higher needs because of the extreme cost of labor.

“I can think back to sitting down with some of these CFOs, where they literally have all these spreadsheets and looking at all these different data points and trying to connect the dots,” he says. “And they’re just trying to figure out how do I unlock efficiencies in this, and how do I use labor, including even their own labor, planning to improve or basically better manage their costs.”

And so, Mantle says innov8.ag has focused on bridging the skills gap in the C-suite as well as in the skills future workers will need.

“It comes back to the gains, the lower hanging fruit, meeting the growers where they are in that Maslow’s hierarchy, bringing that data into the actionable results, where they have the intrinsic pain points that are actually adoptable and then along the way it unlocks where they can start rising back up this pyramid,” he says. “What can I implement now for better labor management on things like labor planning for next year?”

O’Driscoll says labor management goes back to the ultimate question of labor assist versus labor replacement, with labor-supporting technology helping make the existing workforce more productive and efficient, which he says will be more beneficial in the short-to-medium term.

“Some of the really impressive new technologies are labor-supporting,” O’Driscoll says. “For example, in strawberries, having these mobile platforms means workers don’t have to run up and down the rows with their boxes. The robots will carry their boxes to the end of the row. They can be more productive, especially if they’re piece rate and there’s less risk of slip and fall injuries or time lost in running to the end of the row or anything else. So those kinds of efficiencies are good for everybody, right? They’re good for workers, and they’re good for the employer, and they’re much less sort of pie in the sky than when will we actually get the robot hand to learn to twist the berry before they pull it.”

With ag labor being such a tough job, investing in technologies that can reduce repetitive motion injuries benefits the whole of agriculture.

“That’s the perspective we bring based on innumerable conversations with workers who actually want to stay in the industry, but for whom it’s not going to be sustainable absent some sort of an investment,” he says. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be investing in technological innovation in strawberries, but if it makes the folks who are doing the work now want to stay and makes their work easier and more productive, that’s better for the grower and better for the work, and that’s the win-win.

Involving Employees

Any addition of a new piece of technology is an interruption of existing work processes, O’Driscoll says.

“So, however efficient or effective this technology is, it’s still going to have to be integrated,” he says. “It’s going to create change in the work processes and systems change produces unintended consequences up and down the line. So, the simple introduction of technology that doesn’t account for the changes, that doesn’t integrate the workforce in the introduction of that in the design and introduction of the technology is probably destined to fail, even if it’s a really effective robot.”

O’Driscoll points to Semillero de Ideas, an organization that trains farmworkers as consultants to help in the creation and introduction of automation.

“Workers actually advise technologists and employers on the design of the technology,” he says.

O’Driscoll says involving the workforce in the design and introduction of technology maximizes the likelihood of success.

“Our experience in general is that people tend not to destroy things they helped to build,” he says. “Is this the 1960s battle between workers and mechanization, or is this a collaborative opportunity to integrate technologies that actually improve the productivity and the lives of workers, that introduce opportunities for skill development to workers that they feel actually helped to design?”

He says he sees this as the latter, where this will help create new opportunities for workers and offer better quality jobs. Workers, too, feel respected as a part of the process and are more likely to stay at that operation.

“The introduction of new technologies creates all kinds of new opportunities for better quality jobs,” O’Driscoll says. “This ought to be a win-win opportunity, but it’s all going to depend on whether the willingness is there to formally recognize, not just say, ‘Workers are skilled.’ But let’s go beyond saying it’s skilled labor to actually documenting the different kinds of skills that are involved and giving workers a chance to demonstrate those skills and to progress professionally. And then let’s figure out how we formally integrate their perspective and their skill into the design and integration of these new technologies.”

As for the future, Youtsey says it’s going to take creativity and patience. He says a bright side to the ag labor crisis is the investment in ag tech being made by California and others to really seek solutions. And that’s exactly what will be needed in the future.

“It’s going to take a lot of actors with a lot of creative solutioning, working together to move these solutions forward,” he says. “[Venture capital] is not going to solve it. Startups alone aren’t going to solve it. We’ve got to work in a holistic, collaborative networked way to move it forward.”

And, he says, much like what Mantle says with small introductions, the future of technology and labor will likely be a combination of a lot of different ideas.

“We’re going to have to stack some of these solutions,” he says. “It’s just going to take time. It’s going to take continuous runs at it. It’s going to take the turn of innovation to solve these things. And it’s not going to be fast.”

Your next read in this series:

Walt Duflock Unpacks the Future of Farming and Ag Tech

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 19:42:59 GMT

Walt Duflock, senior vice president of Western Growers, doesn’t have “ag tech bouncer” in his title, but maybe he should. Duflock shares some of what makes his role at Western Growers unique on the latest episode of “The Packer Podcast.”

Duflock says his role and Western Growers’ role is to help ag tech startups on the journey from idea to real-world impacts. He estimates there’s more than 2,000 startups in the ag tech and biologicals space, and there’s about 2,300 members of Western Growers.

“There’s no way that any of them can take calls from all 2,000 vendors,” he says.

He says ag labor in the state of California costs growers $16.3 billion a year at around 850 million hours of farm labor. And two-thirds of that 850 million hour is harvest, which is a challenge to automate.

“We work hard to get the one-third of the non-harvest, the weeding, thinning, planting, spraying out there at scale,” he says.

So, Duflock says it’s his job to help these startups understand what’s needed every step in the development of a new innovation.

“Our role is to kind of be the chief coordinator, the general manager, if you will, of the space and help those startups understand: What do you need to know at the start? What do you need to know when you go into trials? What do you need to go that first time you talk to the grower? And what do you need to show that grower in terms of economics? That shows them your tool can come in and help them, not just by doing the job, but by doing the job in economics that work for them,” he says.

Duflock, a fifth-generation farmer with more than 30 years’ experience in Silicon Valley startups (including eBay), says ag tech is the toughest space for startups to operate in.

“No space requires more patience than ag tech, and that’s the one thing startups don’t all get a lot of,” he says. “If you took venture capital money and you got venture capital board members breathing down your neck to deliver, deliver, deliver, it can be really tough. So, the first thing we tell startups is listen, play for the long game and build a product that is going to do the job no matter how long it takes.”

Because with specialty crop agriculture being such a tight-knit community, he says, growers will talk.

“Inevitably, it’s not always the stuff that does work that gets shared with everybody, widely,” he says. “It’s quite often the stuff that didn’t work. So, they’ll warn their friends off of taking some bad pass, but they may hold the good stuff a little closer to their chest.”

Duflock says he coaches ag tech startups to tailor the message to the audience, whether that’s a grower or an investor. He says startups need to understand that when discussing innovations with growers, it’s about improving economics and experience working with growers of a similar type of operation. And startups need a healthy dose of patience.

“That’s the trick for startups, is we’re one of the slower-moving spaces, so people just have to adjust their time frames and expectations on that side,” he says.

One thing Duflock encourages growers and startups to do is focus on the economics. He tells growers it’s important to discuss their economics to make sure the innovations would truly make a difference to their bottom line. And, Duflock says he tells startups the same thing, if they’re not able to show exactly how the economics of the solution pans out for the grower.

“[I] tell the startups, look, if you can’t get to the level of detail, you’re not there,” he says. “You’re not ready to sell it, you’re ready to share your machine. You’re ready to demo, but you’re not ready to trial or offer a sale to anybody. So, keeping both sides focused on economics has been one of the big wins the last couple of years.”

Bonsai Robotics Debuts New Lineup

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 13:39:27 GMT

Bonsai Robotics debuted its new Amiga lineup at FIRA USA 2025. The company says this is a major milestone following its July acquisition of farm-ng. The company debuted the Amiga Flex, the first vehicle to be fully integrated with Bonsai Intelligence, alongside the Amiga Trax and Amiga Max.

Tyler Niday, CEO of Bonsai Robotics, told The Packer this new iteration of the v6 Amiga features is a machine that can outperform tractors in many use cases.

“With this release, it’s a really exciting time, because we’re coming out with the new version of the v6 which has more robust feature sets, more hardware,” he says. “It’s called the Flex. In addition, we’re coming out with the Trax, which is, I would say, a higher horsepower, low cost machine for, you know, medium-sized crops.”

The Amiga Flex is roughly the size of a small ATV with an 800-pound payload, a 700-pound lift and a 1,600-pound towing capacity. Bonsai says it can tow, carry or operate implements used in research, agriculture and light-soil work. This includes weeding, hauling materials, towing sprayers or mowers and scouting crops. It also has capabilities to enable sensors and autonomy research tools.

Amiga Flex comes with Bonsai Intelligence, which powers its vision-based autonomy for intelligent navigation, perception and task execution and a swapable battery system with more than 8 hours of run time per pack.

The company also debuted the Amiga Trax, a low-clearance vehicle for rugged outdoor environments and the Amiga Max, with heavy-duty capabilities. The Trax is ideal for vineyards, perennial crops, off-road work and more and offers towing, hauling and automation capabilities. The Amiga Max offers spraying, towing, hauling and lifting in bedded crops, orchards and more and is designed for tough terrain and heavy loads.

“This is the productized version in a strawberry form factor, and it is hybrid electric, not just electric,” Niday says of the Amiga Maxx.

Niday says the entire new line features updated batteries for longer run times.

What Niday says sets the new iterations of the Amiga line apart is the integration with Bonsai Pilot, a cloud-based application for growers to plan, monitor and manage autonomous operations, across the entire offerings. For growers, this means the entire product line runs off of Bonsai Pilot and generates data in one place.

“We’re now able to run all these machines off the Bonsai Pilot, which is our Bonsai autonomy app stack,” Niday says. “Previously, farm-ng didn’t have an app, and we fundamentally believe you need A-to-B navigation and being able to run plans. I think it’s a huge feature set unlocked, not only from the hardware perspective, but also to be able to run these machines fully autonomously.”

Apeel Sciences Sues ‘Green Smoothie Girl’

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 14:06:51 GMT

Food technology company Apeel Sciences says it’s been under attack since 2023 by a widespread disinformation campaign aimed against the company and its primary technology — a plant based, edible coating that extends freshness and reduces spoilage of produce. On Sept. 3, the Goleta, Calif.-based company said it had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida against one of those alleged disseminators of disinformation: wellness influencer Robyn Openshaw and her company, GreenSmoothieGirl.com Inc.

In the lawsuit, Apeel accuses Openshaw and her company of waging a yearslong disinformation campaign intended to harm Apeel’s business and reputation.

Apeel says the lawsuit asserts claims for false advertising under the Lanham Act; defamation; trade libel; disparagement of perishable agricultural products; tortious interference with business relationships; and unfair and deceptive trade practices.

According to the complaint, Openshaw — known online as the “Green Smoothie Girl” — began posting false claims about Apeel in July 2023. Between then and May 2025, she published at least 60 posts across Instagram, YouTube, X, Rumble, her own website and elsewhere online falsely stating Apeel’s plant-based coating is toxic and that Apeel’s products are made with solvents and heavy metals, the company said in a news release.

Luis Beling is CEO of Apeel Sciences, a food technology company that produces a plant-based, edible coating that extends freshness and reduces spoilage of produce.

(Photo courtesy of Apeel Sciences)

“Beginning in 2023, a coordinated disinformation campaign weaponized countless falsehoods to undermine the verified safety of Apeel’s products, stifle innovation, and profit from deception,” Apeel Sciences CEO Luiz Beling told The Packer in an email. “But bad actors cannot act maliciously without accountability. We have therefore taken legal action to protect our reputation, our products, and the countless Apeel teammates who work each day to make the world a better place.”

Among the “malicious” actions alleged in the lawsuit are that Openshaw used false claims to rally her “Green Smoothie Girl Army” of followers to boycott Apeel, urging them to pressure retailers such as Costco, suppliers such as Limoneira and Driscoll’s, and others to abandon Apeel-protected produce.

Apeel says she also published the personal contact information of executives at grocery chains, encouraged phone, email and in-store campaigns, and sold a downloadable “wallet card” listing stores that did not sell Apeel-treated produce.

In some posts, Openshaw falsely claimed Apeel used a chemical found in “gasoline” in its process, and in others, she said the company’s products contained “palladium, arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury,” the release said.

The complaint says Openshaw’s statements misrepresented FDA filings and omitted facts showing Apeel’s commercial process has never used the solvents Openshaw described.

Apeel says, in fact, its primary technology is a plant-based, edible coating that extends the freshness of produce without the need for refrigeration or synthetic preservatives. It is tasteless, odorless and made from naturally occurring ingredients such as mono- and diglycerides, baking soda and citric acid. These coatings mimic a fruit’s natural peel to slow spoilage, reduce food waste and lower grocery costs. The company adds that its products are approved by regulators in the U.S., the European Union and dozens of other markets worldwide.

‘Freedom of Speech’ vs. ‘Freedom to Defame’

Apeel’s legal representation says the implications of the disinformation campaign are far reaching and financially harmful.

“Apeel has been the victim of a deliberate smear campaign that weaponized disinformation for financial gain,” Thomas A. Clare, one of the founding partners of Clare Locke LLP, which represents Apeel, said in a release. “These falsehoods were not just defamatory. They misled consumers and caused real financial harm to Apeel, its employees and its partners.

“Free speech does not mean freedom to defame,” Clare continued. “This lawsuit is about accountability, and ensuring disinformation cannot be used to destabilize safe and needed innovation and mislead the public.”

Social Media Disinformation

The lawsuit follows actress Michelle Pfeiffer’s July 31, 2025, retraction of inaccurate social media claims about Apeel and its connection to Bill Gates. Pfeiffer acknowledged reposting false information and emphasized the importance of accuracy in public conversations about food safety.

Apeel says the case is part of a larger disinformation campaign that began in April 2023, when dozens of coordinated posts spread across Facebook, X and Telegram warned consumers not to “eat anything with the Apeel sticker on it.” Those posts falsely linked to a safety sheet for an unrelated industrial cleaner manufactured by a wholly different company based in the United Kingdom, presenting it as if it described Apeel’s products.

The complaint states that Openshaw amplified those narratives to her hundreds of thousands of followers, repeating them at least 60 times and intentionally mischaracterizing Apeel’s FDA submissions. Independent fact checks by Reuters, the Associated Press, USA Today and Politifact later confirmed the claims were false and that Apeel’s products are safe and FDA-approved.

Despite this, Apeel said Openshaw and other influencers continued to drive the false narrative, creating consumer fear, harassment of retail partners and disruption of the company’s business.

“Our hope is for an amicable resolution in litigation we pursue, including a retraction of false posts to set the record straight,” Beling told The Packer. “Apeel Sciences will continue to vigorously protect its name, its mission, and the trust of consumers everywhere.”

For more information about Apeel’s products, ingredient safety and global mission, visit its FAQ or read company leadership’s open letter on disinformation here .

Your next read:

John Deere Formally Adds Autonomous Sprayer Company to its Portfolio

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 13:44:31 GMT

John Deere has acquired GUSS Automation, a high-value crop autonomy company. John Deere and GUSS have collaborated on a joint venture since 2022.

GUSS, founded by Dave Crinklaw in 2018, manufactures autonomous sprayers. These sprayers, supervised by a single operator, use GPS, LiDAR and proprietary software to navigate through orchards and vineyards to precisely spray the crops. A single operator can manage up to eight machines at once.

John Deere says more than 250 GUSS machines are deployed globally and have sprayed up to 2.6 million acres for more than 500,000 hours.

Julien Le Vely, director of production systems in high-value and small-acre crops at John Deere, says that while the company has its initial roots in almond orchards, GUSS has been deployed in pistachio, apple and citrus orchards as well as vineyards.

“It’s an opportunity for us to grow further going forward, whether it’s in North America or in Europe or in Australia or in Argentina,” he says of the acquisition. “One of the things that the deal does is it allows us to provide access to our channel globally to GUSS and to distribute the product in an efficient way.”

Future plans

Le Vely says John Deere plans to expand GUSS into additional global markets, building on its presence in Europe, Australia and North America. He identifies fast-growing regions such as South America and Latin America as priorities for future expansion.

An example, Le Vely says, is in citrus. While GUSS currently runs in the largest citrus grower in the U.S., with year-round production in Brazil, he sees a strong opportunity for expansion within that country.

“If you look at an orchard here in North America, you’re looking at seven, eight or nine passes a year [of a sprayer in an orchard],” he says, noting even that can be a struggle for growers to find labor for. “If you look at a citrus orchard in Brazil, you look at 50 passes a year.”

Another crop of note, Le Vely says, for the future of GUSS is high-density olive orchards in Europe. He says European olive growers have expressed interest in the GUSS autonomous sprayer.

“Fundamentally, we still believe that there’s a ton of potential in the crops we currently do,” he says. “Just do it broader, bigger, with higher penetration as a complementary solution to the other tractor sprayers — solutions that they may have on the farm already, but also new crops that we believe we have the ability to master and help farmers with their labor challenges.”

While GUSS has its initial roots in almond orchards, the sprayers have since been deployed in pistachios, apples, citrus and vineyards.

(Photo courtesy of John Deere)

GUSS Name Stays

Le Vely says this will help GUSS — which will retain its brand, employees and manufacturing facility in Kingsburg, Calif. — access more capital and continue to fuel innovation.

“We very much want to maintain the name, the spirit and what GUSS has meant to the people who have trusted it and developed it,” he says. “We don’t intend to change any of that, but we do intend to bring some of the things that John Deere has had a good ability to do: scaling on the manufacturing side, the supply base, the product support.”

Le Vely says that while the GUSS name is well known in California, being distributed through John Deere will help boost the sprayer’s profile in other parts of the country and world.

“I think us coming in and now having GUSS as part of John Deere, they understand that when John Deere says something and commits to something, we usually deliver,” he says. “And if they’re not satisfied, we’ll continue to work with them until we get there. It gives them a lot of confidence to adopt that technology, because they know that we will stand by it.”

Le Vely says technology in general has faced some struggles to achieve broad adoption, stemming from growers’ reluctance to adopt new practices and technology. But, again, he says he’s optimistic that connecting the John Deere name with GUSS will help growers gain more confidence in making the leap to integrating new technology with John Deere’s other integrations.

“We have a lot of other things in the portfolio and technology that can give them more confidence, like connecting machines — them knowing where their machines might be in the field and having the ability to document, ‘Have I sprayed this row or have I not?’” he says. “For their tractor and sprayer combos, us being able to give them that confidence. For the people that may not be quite ready to jump to autonomy, but then they can start seeing and learning and getting into a comfort zone that will, over time, translate to them being more ready for autonomy on a faster pace.”

John Deere Teams Up With the Reservoir

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 18:10:37 GMT

John Deere says in a press release that it has started a strategic collaboration with The Reserovir, an on-farm incubator platform .

John Deere says this partnership connects its agricultural technology, equipment and deep grower relationships with The Reservoir’s startup residents, field testing platforms and commercialization support.

“At The Reservoir, we’re focused on accelerating innovation for high-value crops and the long-term sustainability of California agriculture,” says Danny Bernstein, CEO of The Reservoir, in the news release. “John Deere brings trusted technology, technical expertise and a real commitment to grower support and strength. This partnership strengthens the foundation we’re building and helps unlock the next generation of ag technology in service of our food system.”

Through the agreement, John Deere will become the exclusive original equipment manufacturer to The Reservoir, with branding opportunities across the Reservoir’s Salinas facility and future locations. John Deere will also have access to early-stage startups, co-developed research and development programs and curated field days for technology demonstrations.

“We view high-value crops as an important growth area for agriculture, and an area where innovation is needed and can have a direct, measurable impact on growers’ resilience and productivity,” says Sean Sundberg, business integration manager at John Deere, in the release. “This partnership gives us a front-row seat to the next generation of agricultural technology, and an opportunity to work alongside growers and entrepreneurs to ensure future solutions are practical, scalable and built to last.”

John Deere says this partnership with The Reservoir aims to help specialty crop growers adopt new solutions by addressing labor shortages, increasing efficiency and improving long-term sustainability.

John Deere says the collaboration creates a powerful platform for developing, testing and scaling solutions that address the most pressing challenges in specialty crops. The company says this collaboration unites innovation infrastructure with a thriving network of founders, growers and ag labor innovators, signaling a shared long-term commitment to strengthening the productivity, efficiency and sustainability of high-value crop production in California and beyond.

“John Deere’s investment in The Reservoir is a vital strategic step toward making sure specialty crop growers have a fighting chance amid our industry’s labor shortage,” says Walt Duflock, senior vice president of innovation at Western Growers. “The California agricultural technology landscape will thrive thanks to this kind of collaborative effort.”

Recent Funding, Staffing Changes at USDA Could Risk Ag Research

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 01:50:23 GMT

Concerned. Uncertain. Worried. Unsure.

These were the most common words members of the Science Societies — including American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America — participating in an Aug. 13 webinar used to describe the current agricultural research funding world they live in today.

“There has been a lot of disruption in the normal funding process, especially at USDA,” said Julie McClure, agricultural policy expert with Torrey Advisory Group and the Societies, who MCed the webinar. “There have been a lot of actions taken by this administration that have implications for the research enterprise.”

Those actions included the deferred resignation program offered to federal employees in late January and the late February requirement that all federal agencies plan for and implement reorganizations and reductions in force . On July 8, USDA issued a guidance that, among other things, restricts who federal researchers can co-author research articles with. By the July 24 announcement of USDA’s planned reorganization , it had already shed over 15% of its total workforce.

According to panelists, the on-the-ground results have been the chilling effect of uncertainty, lost research, lost opportunities for students, and a potential future where public-private partnerships in ag research are in doubt and research is driven by politics rather than science.

Uncertainty abounds

The sharp reductions in staffing at USDA agencies have left university researchers awash in uncertainty according to panelists. For example, Michael Thompson, a soil science professor at Iowa State University and past SSSA president, described his experience at Iowa State University where soil scientists collaborate closely with colleagues in USDA agencies and programs.

“The USDA reductions in force have affected personnel and programs in the National Cooperative Soil Survey Program,” he explained, describing it as a collaborative initiative of local, state, federal agencies and experiment stations that improves soil maps around the country.

“Because of the reductions in personnel and the potential reorganization, there’s really a lot of concern that USDA’s larger plans for reorganization could reduce or eliminate the National Cooperative Soil Survey Program,” he added. “The future of that kind of federal-state collaboration is certainly in serious doubt.”

The funding disruptions have also cast doubt beyond just academia, according to panelist Colin Campbell, vice president of research, development, engineering and software at Meter Group, an agricultural and environmental research and technology company.

“USDA funding is a big part of how we fund our research to make more instrumentation,” he said. Campbell described worry over if already granted funding or personnel will be pulled as resulting in inaction. “For example, the Climate Smart Agriculture grant that we worked really heavily on and all got funded, but now the work’s not getting done.”

Lost opportunities

Panelists talked about lost opportunities. In some cases, finished government-funded research cannot cross the proverbial finish line because of recent changes, according to Thompson, pointing to the recent guidance that bars USDA employees from “authoring or co-authoring a scholarly publication” without some logistically taxing requirements.

“Completed research projects cannot now be published,” he said of the situation.

Panelists cited the obvious loss of research opportunities as well; canceled grants and pulled funding. Thompson said there had been 14 projects canceled or stopped permanently, including two in his soil science department. One project that dealt with renewable natural gas production from anaerobic digestion of biomass and manure mixture, while the other focused on training technical service providers about soil sampling for carbon content.

“The loss of funding led to the layoff of a professional soil scientist in our department and to shifting support for grad students to other projects.”

The impact on students was a point of concern for panelists. Diane Rowland, director of the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station at the University of Maine, described the impact on workforce development as huge.

“We’re training the next generation that will feed into the workforce,” she said.

Questions about the future

On Aug. 7, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that changed oversight processes for federal grants. Very generally, it requires federal agencies to appoint one or more senior appointees to review federal grant applications to ensure they “demonstrably advance the president’s policy priorities.” This was an area of uncertainty for the future.

“There are a lot of questions about exactly how this executive order will be enacted, what that means for particularly universities that receive a lot of federal funding through different grants,” McClure noted. “I do think this will add significant time to the process of grant review and funding distribution. And obviously a lot more scrutiny, and scrutiny that won’t be scientific in nature, it will be more of a political scrutiny.”

She said her understanding is that, for the USDA specifically, very few of the necessary appointees that have either been made or cleared through Congress where applicable.

“There are just so many hours in the day that a single person can be reviewing what are often very technical proposals,” she said, adding that reports of delays on grant funding or responses on grants are unsurprising in that situation.

Thompson also raised concerns about the future of independent science with the closing of EPA’s Office of Research and Development , which began in July.

“That office was EPA’s independent science arm that conducted research on detecting pollutant mobility and toxicity in soils and water,” he said, adding the office informed policy decisions and funded many soil- and water-related grants at universities like ISU.

“While it’s possible that a new EPA office on applied science and environmental solutions may be created, its science is not going to be politically independent like the office of research and development was,” he said. “A lot of soil scientists like me have had funding from EPA. The future of that funding is in serious doubt.”

A Robot on a Sweet Corn Label? How One Farm Showcases Agtech to Consumers

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:58:31 GMT

A new label appearing on Sunrise Select sweet corn in select Whole Foods stores shows a Greenfield Robotics’ machine at work in a cornfield. And that little detail carries a much broader message about the robotic weeding technology’s role in regenerative agriculture.

Fifth-generation grower Bill Kercher says adding the label to the produce his family grows on about 600 acres was a no-brainer. His family operates a U-pick farm and grows sweet corn, cabbage, summer squash, winter squash, apples, ornamental pumpkins, jack-o'-lantern pumpkins and painted pumpkins. His family also sells its produce through its Sunrise Produce brand.

Kercher says highlighting robotic weeding to reduce herbicide sprays is just part of a bigger focus on regenerative agriculture practices. He says he hopes using the robotic weeder will help increase his family farm’s soil microbiome with good microbes that will in turn feed the crops they grow.

“We’re doing everything we can to maximize the other kind of pillars of what regenerative ag is and to help improve our soil health on our farm,” he says.

Corn grown by the Kercher family and packaged under Sunrise Produce highlights how robotic weeding is used in farm’s production.

(Photo via Greenfield Robotics LinkedIn page)

Adding the label

Kercher says his family started kicking around the idea of adding a “Robot-Weeded” label to its sweet corn over the winter. He says this is the first produce commodity that has used Greenfield’s technology, so his farm was the first foray into a truly consumer-facing product.

He says the family worked with the Greenfield Robotics team to create the label, which reads “Robot-Weeded — Our farm uses autonomous robots from Greenfield Robotics to remove weeds for a cleaner, smarter way to farm.” The label comes with a QR code leading consumers to a webpage that discusses the benefits of robotic weeding on the Kerchers’ sweet corn, squash and pumpkins — less chemicals, healthier soil and fewer weeds.

Kercher says he notified certain retailers about the ability to add this label and promote the use of robotic weeders in the family’s sweet corn in lieu of herbicide applications, as well as to help promote Greenfield Robotics’ mission. He says he received many positive comments from retailers about the addition.

“They were ecstatic that we would be willing to do that,” he says. “We came up with a label, and the rest is history. We just decided to put it on the tray pack with that label, and it’s gotten a lot of very good reactions from both retailer partners and consumers.”

Kercher says the label’s QR code also allows consumers to submit questions and comments.

“Probably the biggest thing we’ve heard, and I quote from quite a few consumers — we’ve had many just reply with one word, and they’ll say ‘awesome,’” he says.

Kercher has also had consumers reach out who are investors in Greenfield Robotics and were happy to see the company’s logo on the sweet corn tray pack.

“To connect with consumers on the basis that they’ve invested in this company, and they’re seeing their investment come to fruition through the product that we’re putting on the shelf by using what they’ve invested in, is a pretty cool full circle for us and for Greenfield,” he says.

Bill Kercher says he’s seen yield increases and better quality sweet corn through the use of Greenfield Robotics’ robotic weeders.

(Photo courtesy of Bill Kercher)

Regenerative Focus

Kercher says regenerative agriculture started with his father, who wanted to reduce soil erosion and promote the overall health of the soil and the farm. His family plants cover crops on about 90% of its acreage, he adds, and that includes pollinator blends as well as ryegrass, tillage radishes and more.

“We’ve seen a lot of improvement in organic matter in our soils,” he says. “For anyone that’s planting cover crops, it’s a very long process, and it takes many years to improve the organic matter, but we are seeing a lot of improvements in the living soil characteristics.”

This includes a greater presence of earthworms, an increase in soil microbiome and more.

“Our soil is ultimately able to feed the plants better, and we can hopefully begin to reduce fertilizer applications as well,” he says.

Kercher says he’s seen a significant benefit from reducing his inputs this year through using the robotic weeders.

“It’s increased our yields,” he says. “It’s increased the quality of the sweet corn that we’ve gotten. We are learning every day about what we can do to reduce those chemicals, and it’s very encouraging to us that there’s a tool like Greenfield’s robots that will allow us to do that.”

He says adding the robotic weeding will play into his family’s plans to reduce tillage and increase the farm’s healthy soil.

Kercher says he sees a future where more consumers learn about and understand what regenerative ag means.

“When they see a farm engaging in regenerative practices, I think they’ll understand what that means for the soil on the farm,” he says. “They might understand what it means for the rivers, the reduced erosion of topsoil, the health of the surrounding ecological system, just due to the diversity of the plants that are growing in a regenerative system. And then, ultimately, they’ll begin to understand that it might mean more nutrient-dense food for them and their families.”

And he says that will encourage more growers to adopt regenerative practices.

“What we want retailers and consumers both to know is that we have a long-term vision for our farm and how it affects not just our family who lives on the farm, who works on the farm, but the broader community in which we live and those consumers who consume the produce we grow,” he says. “We want them to know that we’re doing everything we can to innovate with an eye toward regenerating the soil we’ve farmed for over 100 years, and this should be seen as our family trying every day to grow the best food that we can for ourselves and for those consumers who put our produce on their table.”

Next steps

Kercher says he plans to add some type of “Robotic Weeded” label to his family’s ornamental pumpkins this fall. While there’s not a lot of space on those labels, he says he’d like to drive consumers to learn more on the website.

His family will continue its partnership with Greenfield Robotics, he says, adding that he also plans to trial some of the company’s new technology next year.

“We are planning to work with Greenfield again, absolutely,” he says.

How Welch’s New Data Partnership Expands Data Insights

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 18:36:53 GMT

Family-farm cooperative Welch’s has partnered with TELUS Agriculture and Consumer Goods, a provider of digital solutions and data insights to offer automated validation, custom rules management and real-time compliance monitoring throughout Welch’s supply chain by leveraging TELUS’ proprietary agricultural database and advanced analytics.

TELUS says a first-of-its-kind deployment through this collaboration will use crop insights from soil to harvest to provide data-driven decision-making.

“This partnership reflects a broader industry shift toward digitizing compliance and improving traceability at every stage of the food system,” says Amy Turner, senior communications manager with TELUS. “The tools we’re providing are designed to help any organization — like Welch’s — capture reliable data from the field and create a strong chain of custody across their supply network.

Turner says this effort underscores the changing landscape as consumers and retailers seek more information on traceability and where food comes from.

“Food companies today are facing growing expectations from retailers and consumers alike, not just to meet safety standards, but to demonstrate transparency in how food is grown and handled,” Turner says. “This partnership is an example of what it looks like when companies invest proactively in that future.”

Turner says the platform will help growers and supply chain stakeholders simplify record-keeping, reduce duplication and provide a clearer view of compliance status. It also enables food companies to use standardized digital records to support transparency, improve workflows and build trust, she adds.

“That kind of infrastructure can help any food company become more agile and audit-ready, especially in the face of evolving regulations,” Turner says. “It’s about creating the right foundation so companies can adapt and scale as their needs evolve. And the goal is the same across the board: to improve the quality, safety, and sustainability of food from grower to consumer.”

The companies say this decade-long arrangement will transform regulatory compliance management and supply chain transparency, which Turner says is worth noting.

“A 10-year partnership signals a deep level of alignment and commitment to evolving together over time,” she says. “It also underscores the growing importance of collaboration between agtech providers and food companies to address complex supply chain challenges — not just in the short term, but for the future of food.”

Bayer Submits Novel Herbicide for Regulatory Approval in U.S., Canada, Brazil and EU

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 16:36:52 GMT

Bayer has taken the first steps in bringing a new herbicide to market, submitting registration applications in four major agricultural regions: the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and now, the European Union. The application process ensures that government agencies in each region review and approve the product for safe use in crop production.

Icafolin-methyl is a new herbicide that employs a mode of action not seen in commercial agriculture in over 30 years, Bayer says in a news release. The company says the novel mode of action to control emerged weeds meets the highest safety and sustainability criteria of CropKey, Bayer’s novel R&D approach for crop protection products. Icafolin belongs to a new chemical class providing unique properties that allow for lower dose rates, more targeted applications, and is expected to demonstrate an exceptional safety and sustainability profile.

A mode of action refers to how a herbicide kills weeds at the molecular level. Bayer says it has been designed to be highly effective at low dose rates, compatible with reduced-tillage practices and supportive of soil health and sustainability goals. This approach uses artificial intelligence to design new active ingredients more quickly and efficiently, and Bayer claims this will also accelerate future product development.

“With CropKey, we’re not just responding to current agricultural challenges more quickly, we’re being proactive and anticipating future needs,” says Rachel Rama, senior vice president and head of small molecules for Bayer’s crop science division. “Leveraging artificial intelligence greatly accelerates our journey from concept to market, so farmers gain access to the most effective and environmentally responsible crop protection products.”

Registration Application

Before a crop protection product such as icafolin can be sold and used, it must be evaluated and approved by regulators in each country or region. These agencies — such as EPA in the U.S. or Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency — examine data on how the product works, how safe it is for humans and the environment, and how it should be used.

Submitting an application is the first official step of this process. Bayer is now waiting for regulatory agencies to complete their review, with projections for initial release in Brazil in 2028. If approved, farmers will be able to use the product according to the label and restrictions set by regulators.

Why This Matters

As more weeds adapt to survive common herbicides such as glyphosate, farmers have fewer effective tools to manage them.

“Weeds threaten food security and farmer livelihoods, which is why investing in game-changing innovations like icafolin is so vitally important,” says Mike Graham, head of research and development for the crop science division of Bayer. “Access to an entirely new herbicide class that complements the existing toolbox not only helps farmers combat and prevent weed resistance, but it also helps farmers adopt and maintain no-till and reduced tillage practices that improve soil health, which is a cornerstone of regenerative agriculture.”

Icafolin-methyl is expected to help by offering a new mechanism for weed control that complements existing herbicides, including glyphosate. Bayer says this will make it easier for growers to rotate and mix herbicides, slowing down resistance development.
In test applications, icafolin-treated weeds stop competing with crops for water and sunlight but remain physically in place, acting as a mulch that helps retain soil moisture and prevent erosion.

When Could Icafolin Be Available?

With an estimated peak sales potential of around 750 million euros, Bayer expects icafolin will be launched from 2028 onward with initial availability in Brazil. The new operating model DSO has been instrumental for advancing icafolin regulatory submissions ahead of schedule, according to the release.

It would be available in the U.S., Canada and other markets in the following years, pending approval.

The product is being developed for a wide range of crops including soybeans, cereals, pulses, oilseed crops, pome and stone fruits, tree nuts, grapes and citrus.

As a novel mode of action, it has unique properties and benefits, Bayer says. Treated weeds become “frozen” in the fields, meaning they stop competing with crops for water, nutrients and sunlight, but the dead weeds remain in the field longer because they largely maintain their structure. This creates a mulch layer that helps prevent erosion and traps moisture in the soil. By providing effective weed control, it reduces the need for tillage, supporting regenerative practices in agriculture that can improve soil health.

For farmers, the news of Bayer’s regulatory submissions marks the beginning of a multi-year approval process but also signals the arrival of long-awaited new weed control options. With herbicide resistance growing, icafolin-methyl could become an important addition to integrated weed management strategies in the next decade.

New Telemetry Platform Helps Farmers Unlock Efficiency Insights

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 19:40:03 GMT

Bonsai Robotics recently launched Teletrace, a connected farming platform to support the company’s autonomous solutions as well as what Bonsai co-founder and CEO Tyler Niday calls a “rainbow fleet” of mixed equipment.

Niday says the telemetry platform helps those growers with a mixed fleet to better understand fuel consumption, spray volumes, etc., on their operation in one central location.

“What we saw was the growers were loving it for autonomy,” he says. “Not only do you have this autonomous operation, but you can track the chemical consumption for an air blast spray job. It’s really the first step to not only run autonomous operations but to trace all your data back to one central hub.”

Teletrace is powered by the Topcon CL-55, a compact telemetry device that plugs directly into the existing CAN bus. The Topcon CL-55 transmits data to Topcon’s CloudLink service, which then integrates into Bonsai’s cloud platform so growers can monitor and manage every piece of equipment through the Teletrace program.

“This is a really low-cost solution with the hardware we selected through our partnership with Topcon,” he says. “They’re a tried-and-true player in this space. And with this hardware, we really can make this rainbow fleet come through without additional sensors.”

Niday says the Teletrace platform can show every meter of a tractor in use, gallons per acre of crop protection sprayed, fuel consumption, maintenance issues, engine data and harvest data — all to help growers better understand their operation.

“You get a lot more insights outside of just the basics, but the basics offer insight for the grower to improve efficiency,” Niday says. “And if you get 10% savings, that’s huge just from data.”

Niday says this is just the beginning for growers.

“The ultimate goal is to be able to track the almond or the strawberry or the grape from the grocery store back to the field and have all the Intel and information,” he says. “With our autonomous applications and the ability to not only run through the field but look at every tree and being able to in the future trace what’s happening from a visual perspective, back and out of the field as well, I think, is the next big step where things can get really, really interesting.”

How an Agri-Food Pioneer Transforms Soil Science into Real-World Solutions

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 18:52:39 GMT

Long before soil biology and microbial inoculants became paramount for produce growers and agtech companies alike, Linda Kinkel was digging — literally and figuratively — into the relationships between microbes and plants. As a young faculty member at the University of Minnesota nearly 35 years ago, she encountered a field where something unusual was happening: after 30 years of monoculture potato cropping, the soil had become virtually immune to disease.

“No grower would grow potatoes every year in the same field for 30 years,” Kinkel says, “but this was a breeding nursery for the fresh market potato industry. It was a great spot to have lots of disease pressure, but after 30 years, there was no disease. You could put pathogens in that soil and there was no infection.”

The discovery sparked what became a lifelong career of research into soil microbes and their capacity to build disease resistance, improve nutrient uptake and enhance overall crop productivity.

“I spent more years than I care to admit trying to find the microbe responsible,” she says. “What became clear was that there was no one microbe. It was partnerships, microbes interacting. And specifically, the way they interacted led to this amazing disease suppression, so — partners matter.”

That principle, partners matter, has guided her scientific journey ever since. It also played a key role in her being named a Top Agri-Food Pioneer by the World Food Prize Foundation in 2025.

From science to solutions

Kinkel co-founded Jord BioScience to make microbial products that are not only effective but also consistent, something the biologicals industry has long struggled with, Kinkel says.

“Growers need consistent tools,” she says. “That’s a huge opportunity, and one of the primary goals of Jord: to lift that consistency while seeking to outperform chemistries.”

Though microbial technologies like bio-stimulants, bio-fertilizers and biopesticides aren’t new, their relevance to fresh produce and specialty crops is rapidly growing. And according to Kinkel, they’re far from a one-size-fits-all tool.

For the fresh produce industry, the potential is great, Kinkel says.

“These aren’t crop-specific technologies,” she says. “There’s no reason they can’t be adaptable to any crop, any mode of application, any grower objective. If a grower needs disease control of a particular pathogen in leafy greens, or enhanced phosphorus uptake in apples, or stronger biostimulant action in potatoes, we can optimize inoculants to those needs.”

At Jord BioScience, Kinkel says, the company is already working with leafy greens, and she, personally, has long experience in potato and apple production.

“Earlier in my career, I worked on inoculation of apples to protect the fruit,” she adds.

Linda Kinkel, founder of Jord BioScience has been recognized as a 2025 Top Agri-Food Pioneer by the World Food Prize Foundation.

(Photo courtesy of Linda Kinkel)

Special solutions for specialty crops

What excites Kinkel most about the future of microbial solutions is their potential in specialty crop systems, where diversity in crops and growing environments demands flexibility.

“Specialty crops offer a special opportunity,” she says. “There’s so much diversity — so many crops, challenges and habitats. That’s where biology shines. Chemistry usually has one active ingredient applied broadly, but that’s not how biology works. Microbes allow for bespoke solutions that can be tailored not just to the crop, but to the specific farm or region.”

And thanks to advances in fermentation technology, application method flexibility and inoculant stability, many previous barriers to microbial adoption are falling away.

“Our microbes are agnostic to application method,” Kinkel says. “Whether it’s foliar, soil or something else, we can work with it. Biologicals are becoming much more adaptable and stable.”

Still, one major challenge remains, particularly for produce: field validation.

“You must have that field validation to provide the rigor and confidence growers need,” she says. “The diversity in specialty crops makes it harder to build large-scale testing platforms. But it’s our responsibility in the biologicals industry to make those investments, to prioritize the right needs and bring real value to growers.”

A lifelong fan of the “good guys”

Kinkel’s fascination with soil microbes began during a college course in plant pathology that focused almost entirely on pathogens.

“There was one lecture, just one, on beneficial microbes,” she says. “And I thought, what the heck? Why don’t we know more about the good guys? That question really defined my career.”

“The soil is filled with an entire universe of microbes that are doing big jobs for us every day, thanklessly,” Kinkel says. “My passion has always been to understand the who, how and why of these microbial interactions, and how we can manage them for better outcomes in food security and agriculture.”

Even after more than three decades in the field, her enthusiasm hasn’t waned.

“I’m not young anymore,” Kinkel laughs, “but I still see such potential in what we can do with soil microbiology. It’s a great tool.”

Top Agri-Food Pioneer recognition

As she prepares to be honored by the World Food Prize Foundation this year alongside a new cohort of innovators, Kinkel reflects on her journey and the mentors who inspired her, including Norman Borlaug, whom she met early in her career at the University of Minnesota.

“It’s humbling to be part of Dr. Borlaug’s broad footprint, however small my piece may be,” she says. “I’m especially proud that our collaborative team at Jord is being recognized. Microbes work best in collaboration — and so do we.”

The second annual Top Agri-Food Pioneers includes 39 changemakers from 27 countries forging a new future for food, according to a news release by the World Food Prize Foundation . The honorees, including Kinkel, will be formally recognized during the 2025 Norman E. Borlaug International Dialogue, taking place Oct. 21–23 in Des Moines, Iowa.

“The 2025 TAP list showcases the extraordinary diversity, talent and resolve of individuals working across borders and disciplines to build a more sustainable and just global food system,” says Mashal Husain, president of World Food Prize Foundation. “In a world facing urgent and interwoven crises, these honorees are fearless changemakers driving impact where it matters most — and offering real hope for the future.”

Taylor Farms acquires ag robotics company FarmWise

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 19:49:50 GMT

Taylor Farms, a Salinas, Calif.-based ready-to-eat salad company, has acquired FarmWise, an agricultural technology robotics company specializing in precision weeding and thinning solutions, according to a news release.

Last month, FarmWise announced plans to “wind down” operations by April 1 due to lack of funding.

Best known for its Vulcan next-generation, intra-row weeder and precision cultivator that launched in 2023, FarmWise’s three-in-one implement offers precision weeding, cultivation and thinning.

Taylor Farms, which had previously implemented FarmWise’s Vulcan technology, said it saw a reduction in its weeding costs of nearly $550,000, eliminating the need for cultivator passes on 64% of the acres covered. Taylor Farms had also said FarmWise’s technology allowed it to scale operations more efficiently, reduce labor costs and improve precision in ways that traditional methods couldn’t match.

“We believe in the FarmWise technology and think we have an important role to play with industry adoption in the specialty crop space,” Ted Taylor, president of Taylor Farms agricultural operations, said in a release. “This acquisition is another step forward in our mission to drive the future of agriculture with thoughtful and impactful innovation.”

FarmWise’s leadership echoed this enthusiasm in the future of agtech.

“I’m incredibly proud of what our team has built,” said FarmWise CEO Tjarko Leifer, CEO. “The FarmWise Vulcan delivers a strong return on investment to vegetable growers today, and this is just the beginning. I’m more bullish than ever about a future where advanced robotics play a vital role in making farming more productive and sustainable.”

Taylor Farms says the acquisition is a natural fit for the company as it continues to “adopt advanced solutions that benefit the produce industry at large.” It will immediately begin assisting the transition to ensure continuity of service for FarmWise’s Vulcan customers, the release said.

The companies say the collaborative approach strengthens the transition and furthers the innovative momentum behind the Vulcan technology.

Your next read: AI-powered FarmWise prepares for next chapter in ag robotics

Carbon Robotics adds autonomous tractor solution

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:29:21 GMT

In a move to help growers maximize equipment and address labor shortages, Carbon Robotics launched its Carbon AutoTractor, an autonomous solution installed on existing tractors.

Carbon Robotics’ founder and CEO Paul Mikesell says its Carbon AI will power remotely monitored tractors to help specialty crop growers deploy laser weeders for almost around-the-clock production.

“With LaserWeeder, farmers want to run them as much as they possibly can, but it’s hard to find labor,” he told The Packer. “It’s really hard to find labor to do the tractor driving. It’s hard to find labor to do these late midnight shifts. It’s hard to find people to do all the different tasks you want to do with the tractors.”

The Carbon AutoTractor features two core components: the Carbon Autonomy Kit and the Remote Operations Control Center. Mikesell said operators in ROCC handle any obstructions through monitored autonomy and take over the autonomy system, so production continues. He said growers, then, don’t have to worry whether an autonomous task gets completed.

“They’re trained in using Carbon Auto Tractor,” he said. “They know how to do the functions that the farmer wants to do in the field. And then, whenever there’s something that comes up, they can literally change drive the tractor remotely, and get through whatever obstacle it is, and then keep moving.”

Mikesell said the Carbon Auto Tractor will currently work for LaserWeeder tasks, ground prep such as mulching, mowing, discing and more, but there are plans to expand its capabilities in the future.

The Carbon Autonomy Kit is initially compatible with John Deere 6R and 8R Series tractors, requiring no permanent modifications and installation completed in less than 24 hours. Once installed, tractors can toggle between autonomous and manual operation as needed.

“It bolts on and then that you plug into the harness in the inside on the inside cab, and there’s a box that mounts on the window that you can turn it on and off,” Mikesell said.

The Carbon AutoTractor system includes RTK-accurate GPS, 360-degree cameras and radar-based safety sensors, as well asphysical, remote and mobile e-stops connected via a high-speed, low-latency satellite link.

“We have better visibility from the cameras on the roof than you do from the inside the cabin,” Mikesell said.

And for those growers who might be reluctant to go to an autonomous tractor, Mikesell said the Carbon AutoTractor is designed to help growers better deploy farm labor where it’s needed most.

“You want somebody there to inspect or notice problems with your irrigation or things of that nature. You’ll still want to have those people around, but the point is that they don’t have to spend all that time driving up and down the rows to do the simple task,” he said. “They can then spend their time focusing on figuring out where or if there’s issues and how to address other problems and it relieves the constant need to be driving the tractor all the time.”

Mikesell said this solution also offers growers the option to deploy tractors at night for weeding or when the nighttime temperatures are cooler. This also helps growers maximize return on investment by being able to run the autonomous solution all the time, he said.

“We found that lot of people want to run their LaserWeeder 24/7 because they get a really good ROI or more crops they can put it under, but they just can’t find the operators to run it 24/7,” he told The Packer. “If you can run it, 24/7, you can double the hours in a typical season and you can get that tool doing everything you need it to.”

Carbon Robotics said the autonomous solution works seamlessly with its LaserWeeder, automatically adjusting speed to optimize weeding performance based on weed type, size and density, which can boost coverage by up to 20% compared to manually operated systems.

Brandon Munn, farm manager with Columbia Basin Onion, has worked with the Carbon Robotics team on this autonomous solution.

“With many of our tractors and LaserWeeders running autonomously with Carbon AutoTractor, we’re able to operate more hours, address labor challenges and make night shifts safer and more reliable,” Munn said in a news release. “This isn’t just automation; it’s a practical solution that’s fundamentally changing how we farm.”

Additional Details Come In On AutoTractor
Farm Journal talked with CEO Paul Mikesell to see what else we could learn about the system and what makes it different from other tractor autonomy kits on the market. Here’s a handful of bullet points breaking down what we uncovered:

Don’t Call It A Retrofit - Because the AutoTractor kit doesn’t effectively alter or change anything mechanically on the tractor itself, Mikesell says he prefers to refer to it as a “augmentation kit.”
Satellite Connectivity Changed The Game - When Mikesell and his team started this project back in 2023, connectivity was a limiting factor in enabling a tractor to safely operate with complete autonomy. That is no longer a limiting factor as developments in the stratosphere like SpaceX’s StarLink and Intellsat’s low earth orbit constellations have provided the necessary latency and bandwidth to make driver-less operation safe and viable.
Pricing Is Still TBD - Pressed on how much the system will cost from an up-front investment standpoint, Mikesell told us that “we’re still fine tuning that price.”
Expect An Hourly Fee - Mikesell did confirm that the technology will carry a per-hour fee. He says that fee will track closely with what the user would pay a local machine operator to run the tractor. That could mean a per-hour fee anywhere from $15 in the Midwest to upwards of $25 per hour in high-wage markets like California and Washington. “We’re trying to save you money by not having to worry about travel time out to the fields. There’s no lunch break. You don’t have to worry about paying overtime. This machine will do as many double shifts as you want, and we’re still employing people to do all the monitoring. So we have a very skilled and qualified group of people that are doing all the monitoring. So that’s kind of the model: we charge you per hour to run this machine for you and we’ll work with you on what jobs you want done and how you want it done and make sure that everything is handled appropriately.”
Remote Operators With Tractor Experience - Mikesell says his remote operators that task and oversee the driverless tractors for farmers get a crash course in how tractors are used on your typical farm. “Just being out there in the field long enough to understand the size of things that are around you and just kind of what a field looks like and how things are laid out, makes a huge difference when you’re trying to drive remotely,” says Mikesell. “Even though you have a better view driving remotely, because you have a nice 360 degree view off the roof, having some concept and understanding about the size of things and kind of what everything looks like helps quite a bit.”

Your Next Read: Using tech to target food safety threats

AI-powered FarmWise prepares for next chapter in ag robotics

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 13:08:24 GMT

FarmWise, an artificial intelligence and computer vision weeding technology company in the robotic precision weeding technology space is restructuring its business, CEO Tjarko Leifer told The Packer on March 14. The Salinas, Calif.-based company, which employs a staff of 50, is best known for its Vulcan next-generation, intra-row weeder and precision cultivator that launched in 2023.

“The need for solutions like Vulcan has grown as growers face mounting pressure from labor shortages, rising input costs and operational complexities, said Leifer. “The technology has proven its ability to deliver meaningful efficiency gains and cost savings in the field. But even with growing demand and a product that works, achieving sustainable, profitable growth remains a significant challenge in today’s market.”

Vulcan is really a three-in-one implement that does precision weeding, cultivation and thinning, says Leifer.

On the specialty crop side, the company’s Vulcan technology is employed primarily by growers of lettuce and brassicas in the coastal California and Arizona vegetable crop markets. More recently, FarmWise entered the processing tomato market in California’s Central Valley, a new segment that Leifer says is nearly as big as the leafy green and brassicas market on an acreage basis.

Leifer points to one customer — a 10,000-acre vegetable grower with farms in Yuma, Ariz. and Salinas — who saw significant savings and a reduction in labor costs.

“Implementing the FarmWise Vulcan has transformed how we approach weeding on our operation,” the vegetable grower said. “Over just one season, we reduced weeding costs by nearly $550,000 and eliminated the need for cultivator passes on 64% of the acres covered. The AI-powered technology has allowed us to scale operations more efficiently, reduce labor costs, and improve precision in ways that traditional methods couldn’t match. This technology has set the foundation for even greater growth and profitability in the future.”

The grower also reported its per-acre weeding costs dropped 38% in romaine and 15% in broccoli. Additionally, 64% of its acreage no longer needed cultivator passes, cutting fuel use and field wear. And machines achieved up to 100 acres weeded per week, with 1-3 acres per hour efficiency and no compromise on weed removal quality.
With such notable results, why was FarmWise unable to scale?

“The short version is that we haven’t — with the resources that we’ve been able to raise — been able to reach profitability,” said Leifer. “And that’s such a critical threshold to get to for any business.

FarmWise CEO Tjarko Leifer is hopeful about the next chapter for the agtech company.

(Photo courtesy of FarmWise)

“We’ve had some great milestones we’ve achieved in terms of a product that really works for farmers, that drives a return on investment, that has a payback period of less than two years, and that’s deployed commercially and reliable day-in and day-out,” he continued.

But the company has also faced challenges.

FarmWise says the time horizons have been challenging for the company, because while it sees demand for the technology, it needs a longer runway to prove itself and drive adoption.

Leifer says broader macroeconomic headwinds have also impacted ag equipment investment overall — from rising interest rates and policy uncertainty to challenges around labor and immigration.

“Agriculture is a business that rightfully values caution and real-world proof,” Leifer said. “Growers want to see new technology work on the ground before fully adopting it — and we respect that approach.” Next-gen tech isn’t alone in feeling these headwinds.

The CEO also said these headwinds aren’t unique to startups. Large equipment manufacturers have seen sales drop 30% to 50%, making it a particularly tough moment for capital-intensive innovations, he said.

“If you’re a 120-year-old company, it’s a cyclical downturn,” he said. “If you’re a startup, it’s a much steeper hill to climb with limited resources.”

Agtech is in need of fellow visionaries to succeed, and Leifer sees this as a moment for the industry to rally around innovation, while recognizing the path from early adoption to scale is never linear.

“Building a great product is only half the challenge,” he said. “The next chapter is building the distribution and support infrastructure to bring it to scale. That’s where partnerships become critical.”

FarmWise’s core product is the AI-powered Vulcan, which weeds, cultivates and thins vegetable crops like lettuces and brassicas.

(Photo courtesy of FarmWise)

Labor considerations

While agriculture, like many industries, is in a labor crisis, in some cases it’s been slow to adopt technology that would alleviate that challenge.

“Labor cost inflation, especially coming out of COVID, and also changes in laws around how ag overtime is treated in California, are pressing issues, but with the new administration’s approach to labor and immigration, people really don’t know if labor will become plentiful or if it’s going to be much harder to hire people,” said Leifer. “So, there’s a lot of things changing right now, and a bit of a wait-and-see attitude.

“It’s an existential question for many segments of farming, in particular vegetable farming segments where there’s a lot of labor costs per acre,” Leifer continued. “Those costs are going up. It’s getting harder to find people, and farmers are very interested in technology and solutions that help them address that.”

Leifer says even if growers aren’t looking to reduce labor, they’re still looking for solutions that allow them to farm on a larger scale with the skilled labor they already have.

“How can you upskill the needs you have so you can do more with the good people you have? It’s how do we keep agriculture profitable and healthy in the United States and competitive? We need to find ways to be more productive,” said Leifer.

With AI and computer vision robotics, there are efficiencies that can be delivered today that couldn’t before, he said.

Robotics addresses inputs

In addition to the labor side of the story, there’s also the chemical side.

“There’s a lot of talk about some of the herbicides that are used in broccoli being removed from the market,” said Leifer. “And as you broaden out to row crops, there’s the whole herbicide-resistance story in a lot of those cropping systems, which ultimately mean farmers are going to need new technologies. We’ve always thought that AI and robotics can play a really important role there.”

Robotic machinery allows growers to see and understand the crop in the field, differentiate between the crop and weeds, and then control in real time how the machine is behaving as it goes through the field. As such, robotics also offers the potential to reduce the use of chemistry, drive crop fertility and automate tasks that are still done manually, says Leifer.

“There’s natural herbicide resistance that’s gaining and farmers are going to need new solutions in a broad range of cropping systems,” he said. “The market is working on providing innovations for them and we believe one of those — a big one — has to do with robotics and agriculture.”

The road to adoption

FarmWise says its flagship three-bed, 80-inch unit had an MSRP of $645,000. The annual service and support package is an additional $45,000. Leifer says the savings driven by the unit pays for itself in under two years.

“It’s a very attractive proposition,” said Leifer. “If the machine works and it saves people money, people should be ripping this out of your hands and off the lot to put into their fields.”

But employing AI-driven tech is not as simple as flipping a switch or screwing in a light bulb.

“It takes someone who believes in it and sees their success in the organization tied to the success of making the program work,” he said. “It takes an ownership group that wants to empower somebody like that. So, there ends up being a lot of nuances to how an organization can successfully adopt technology.”

What’s next for FarmWise?

While the current FarmWise team is preparing to wind down operations by April 1, the company says it is actively pursuing strategic opportunities — including acquisition, partnership and technology transfer — to ensure the Vulcan platform continues to thrive.

“We’re proud to have proven that advanced robotics can deliver real value in one of the most complex environments — agriculture,” Leifer said. “This is just the start of what’s possible with this kind of technology.

“We’re in active discussions with potential partners and investors,” he added. “There’s a path forward here, and I’m hopeful the technology we’ve built will continue to scale and serve more growers in the future.”

FarmWise says it remains committed to supporting its current customers and ensuring continuity during the transition period — including access to service and spare parts.

“We know growers depend on this technology, and we’re doing everything we can to provide stability and a strong handoff,” Leifer said.

Robot Bees? Check Out This New Pollination Innovation

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 17:09:13 GMT

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed advanced robotic insects that could aid farming through artificial pollination. They could prove especially useful in the controlled indoor environments of high-tech ‘vertical farms’.

“These type of robots will open up a very new type of use case,” co-lead author Suhan Kim, from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), told Reuters.

“For instance, we can think of artificial pollination. So since our robot looks like an insect, and it’s real lightweight and small, if you can really precisely control the robot we might be able to do something on top of flowers or leaves, which really requires very delicate interactions.”

The robots, each lighter than a paperclip, can hover for approximately 1,000 seconds, over 100 times longer than previous models. They are also capable of performing high-speed acrobatic maneuvers, including double aerial flips.

The new design halves the size of the team’s earlier model, with increased stability while also freeing up space for electronics.

“We want the robot to be able to have a [circuit] board, battery and the sensors on board. So to do that, we need much higher payload than now. So what we’re currently pushing very hard right now is to optimize the robot design to be able to lift more and more so that we can afford these potential payloads,” said Kim.

Long term, the team hope this will enable autonomous flight outside the lab. This technology could significantly boost crop yields in multi-level warehouses by providing a more efficient method for artificial pollination.

Vertical farming, the name given to the production of crops in a series of stacked levels, often in a controlled environment, is a fast-growing industry with billions of dollars being pumped into projects across the globe.

It is seen as part of the solution to the food security challenge posed by population expansion at a time when climate change and geopolitics threaten supply.

“This doesn’t really mean that we want to entirely replace honeybees in nature, but what we sometimes hear from the people in the relevant field is that there are really good cases where we can’t rely on honeybees anymore, such as like indoor farming, where we can’t really have honeybee homes in it because of safety issues or some environmental issues. So in that case, we can start thinking of using our robot, if it works well, for tools like indoor farming,” added Kim.

Despite the team’s improvements, the robotic insects still cannot match the capabilities of natural pollinators. However, the researchers aim to improve the robots’ flight time and precision to enable them to land and take off from the center of a flower.

The research was published in the journal Science Robotics.

FDA on purple tomatoes: No further questions

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 18:03:07 GMT

The purple tomato is heading to market.

Norfolk Plant Sciences says it has successfully completed a consultation with the Food and Drug Administration regarding its high-antioxidant, genetically engineered purple tomato.

Following a comprehensive review, the FDA stated, “We have no further questions concerning human food derived from Del/Ros1-N tomato at this time,” according to a news release.

The first limited sales of the purple tomato have started to restaurants and at several farmers markets, Norfolk Healthy Produce CEO Nathan Pumplin said in an email. The company, which is the U.S.-based subsidiary of Norfolk Plant Sciences, is in the process of finalizing the market name for the purple tomato.

“The support and engagement we’ve received from the FDA, and from our industry, have been truly inspiring as we pave the way for the next generation of produce and food,” Pumplin said in the release. “With a tomato that captivates palates while promoting well-being, we look forward to sharing its exceptional qualities with enthusiastic consumers.”

This decision from the FDA aligns with the USDA’s positive decision in September 2022, marking a significant milestone for Norfolk, the release said. With this development, the company is ready to introduce a range of purple tomato products, including fresh tomatoes and seeds for home gardeners, according to the release.

Developed by professor Cathie Martin at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, United Kingdom, the purple tomato derives its exceptional antioxidant properties from two genes sourced from the edible snapdragon flower, the release said.

Related: More produce tech news

These genes naturally stimulate the tomato’s ability to produce purple pigments, resulting in the vibrant hues of purple-skinned tomatoes, blueberries, blackberries and eggplants. Throughout the consultation process, the FDA closely reviewed the purple tomato’s composition, safety and other relevant parameters, the release said.

Purple tomatoes have a similar nutrient composition as their conventional counterparts, except for their intended higher levels of anthocyanins, the release said, and the FDA concluded that bioengineered purple tomatoes do not present concerns for human food.

“This is excellent news,” Martin said in the release. “Fifteen years after our first peer-reviewed publication, I am thrilled to share the healthy fruits of my research with tomato lovers and gardeners.”

Professor Jonathan Jones, co-founder of Norfolk Plant Sciences with Martin, said in the release that the FDA’s verdict “feels like a watershed moment.”

“Since Cathie and I founded NPS over 15 years ago, a challenging regulatory process has hindered our vision of a consumer biotech company that could add attractive and health-promoting traits to fresh produce,” Jones said in the release. “The challenges have been successfully overcome, and we are eager to introduce these crop improvements to the public in a product that enables consumer choice.”

Jessica Louie, chief technology officer of Norfolk Healthy Produce, said the company expects to expand the availability of the purple tomato in 2024.

USDA reviews genetically engineered tomato, potato plants

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 18:23:58 GMT

The USDA recently reviewed soybean, tomato, and potato plants modified using genetic engineering to determine whether they presented an increased plant pest risk compared to similar cultivated plants, according to a news release.

Inner Plant modified two soybean plants and one tomato plant to produce an optical signal, the release said. One soybean plant was modified to emit the signal when there is pest damage, while the other soybean and the tomato plant continuously emit the signal, according to the release.

Inner Plant has a system to detect these signals using remote sensing devices from tractors, drones, airplanes and satellites to aid crop management, the release said.

In addition, Ohalo Genetics modified a potato plant to produce an increased concentration of beta-carotene for altered nutritional value, the release said. Beta-carotene is an antioxidant that can give an orange, yellow or red color to carrots and other foods.

The USDA said the plants presented no special plant pest risk compared with other cultivated varieties of the same commodities.

Interested parties can view the regulatory status review requests from Inner Plant and Ohalo Genetics and APHIS’ response letters on the USDA website .

The agency said its responses are based on information from the developers and its:

Familiarity with plant varieties.
Knowledge of the traits.
Understanding of the modifications.

Under the Code of Federal Regulations Title 7, part 340, developers may request a regulatory status review when they believe a modified plant is not subject to regulation. The USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service reviews the modified plant and considers whether it might pose an increased plant pest risk compared to a nonregulated plant. If the agency’s review finds a plant is unlikely to pose an increased plant pest risk relative to the comparator plant, APHIS issues a response indicating the plant is not subject to the regulations.

Report: Growers spend $500K average per year on automation

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 20:30:09 GMT

The second annual Western Growers Specialty Crop Automation Report reveals a 25% increase in average year-over-year agtech investment.

Growers are now spending an average of $500,000 a year on automation in response to the persistent ag labor shortage, according to the Specialty Crop Automation Report , commissioned by Western Growers. This is the second year the Specialty Crop Automation Report has been released by Western Growers in collaboration with consultants at Roland Berger, according to a news release.

The report, which tracks and measures industry progress in harvest automation across the fresh produce industry, is part of Western Growers’ Global Harvest Automation Initiative, which aims to accelerate ag automation by 50% in 10 years, the release said.

“This year’s report takes a deep dive into some new areas: The European market, Controlled Environment Agriculture, and the innovator’s side of automation,” Walt Duflock, vice president of Innovation at Western Growers, said in the release. “We found progress from a fundraising and traction perspective in key areas like weeding, spraying and harvest assist — and less progress in other key areas, notably harvest.”

Among the report’s findings:

Around 70% of participating growers indicated that they had invested in automation in 2022, with an average annual spend of $450,000 to $500,000 per grower. This shows a considerable increase since last year when average investments in automation were around $350,000 to $400,000 per grower per year, the report said.
Most progress was made in the weeding and harvest assist segments; market-ready solutions are able to meet grower economic targets and alleviate key challenges, such as lack of labor availability. Growers reported returns on investment for weeding solutions of less than one to two years depending on the type of crop and technology used, according to the report.
Growers want more trained agtech personnel, with 50% indicating that they had internal employees who dedicated the majority of their time to the integration of automation investments. This suggests that the process of elevating and upskilling the agriculture workforce is well underway, the release said.
The time it takes to build automation solutions is getting shorter and the costs are getting smaller thanks to overall advances in robotics and nonagricultural fields that benefit agtech startups, as well as the increasing talent pool that agtech startups are able to add to their teams.

Carbon Robotics raises $30M to scale its LaserWeeder platform

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 22:24:01 GMT

Seattle-based Carbon Robotics has closed $30 million in Series C financing to expand sales of its LaserWeeder platform.

The funding was contributed by lead investor Sozo Ventures along with existing investors Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, Ignition Partners, Liquid2 and Voyager Capital, according to a news release.

The funding will be used to expand sales regions in North America, optimize and scale manufacturing, develop new software and hardware products, and launch into international markets, the release said. This latest round of financing brings Carbon Robotics’ overall funding to $67 million, according to the company.

“Carbon Robotics’ elegant use of [artificial intelligence], computer vision, robotics and lasers is the only solution that enables farmers to reduce their most expensive line item — weed control — without damaging plants or the soil,” Rob Freelen, managing director of Sozo Ventures, said in the release. “I am particularly impressed with the team’s fast pace of innovation to bring breakthrough products to market, boosting farmers’ profitability across conventional, organic and no-till practices.”

The LaserWeeder identifies weeds and targets them for elimination. The implement’s 30 high-powered carbon dioxide lasers use thermal energy to destroy the meristem of the weed with millimeter accuracy, without damaging nearby crops or disturbing the soil, according to the release.

“This financing round further supports our mission to provide cost-effective and efficient precision ag-tech tools to growers,” Paul Mikesell, CEO and founder of Carbon Robotics, said in the release. “Traditional weeding methods, including hand weeding and herbicides, are expensive, unreliable and damage soil health. The LaserWeeder uniquely addresses all of these challenges.”

To date, Carbon Robotics’ LaserWeeders have successfully eliminated more than 500 million weeds across 40 different crops, the company said.

The LaserWeeder will be delivered this year to farms across 17 U.S. states and three provinces in Canada, according to the release. Most recently, Carbon Robotics expanded the features of the LaserWeeder with the industry’s first LaserThinning capability, targeting areas where vegetable crops are purposefully overseeded and then thinned for optimal crop spacing, growth and yield.

As part of the Series C financing, Rob Freelen with Sozo Ventures and Erik Benson with Voyager Capital will join the Carbon Robotics board of directors, the release said.

Agmatix partners with NASA Harvest to support the use of sustainable agricultural practices

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 20:11:57 GMT

Tel Aviv, Israel-based agtech company Agmatix is partnering with NASA Harvest to support crop production in a sustainable way at the field level and mitigate the effect of climate change.

Satellite imagery alongside ground measurements will be analyzed using the Agmatix platform to inform sustainable on-farm decisions, according to a news release.

A combination of ground sampling and remote sensing data will be used to support farmers in their transition toward sustainable agriculture, the release said.

NASA Harvest is NASA’s global food security and agriculture consortium, the release said, with a mission to enable and advance adoption of satellite Earth observations by public and private organizations to benefit food security, agriculture and environmental resiliency worldwide, the release said.

NASA Harvest will provide its expertise on agricultural remote sensing and leverage tools developed by the consortium, which will then be combined with field data from Agmatix and processed using a proprietary artificial intelligence algorithm, the release said. The release said that these data-driven insights can help farmers make field-level decisions that impact sustainability most effectively, such as cover crop selection and fertilizer application.

“According to the World Economic Forum, sustainable agriculture practices must triple in order to prevent climate change,” Ron Baruchi, CEO of Agmatix, said in the release. “Currently, adoption is hindered by a lack of consistent and acceptable measurements at scale. Our collaboration will promote resilient agriculture beginning with smallholder farms in India and commercial farms in Brazil, and lead to further expansion worldwide.”

Syngenta Group and Yara adopt Varda’s Global Field ID system

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 19:08:42 GMT

Norway-based crop nutrition company Yara and the Syngenta Group have entered into a partnership with agtech startup Varda, which was founded by Yara.

The two companies want to accelerate the adoption of Global Field ID, a new technology standard that helps facilitate field data discovery and data sharing in the agriculture and food industry, according to a news release.

Varda digitally maps agricultural land and assigns unique IDs to land plots, creating a “QR code for fields,” delivered to users via an application programming interface (API), the release said. The aim of the service is to create a “common geospatial language” for the whole industry.

Having a unique ID for every field is a necessary step to effectively collaborate toward a more sustainable, resilient and transparent food system, according to the release.

Today, farmers and agribusinesses use different formats to identify fields across their digital farming tools, which hinders interoperability and collaboration across industry, the release said.

For farmers, Global Field ID will mean improved connectivity between their digital farming tools and more efficient communication with stakeholders beyond the farm gate, the release said.

More produce tech news: Instacart’s new tools to help independent grocers, along with big retailers

The system will be used as an additional data layer within the companies’ own digital farming tools, building a shared reference framework to annotate field-level data, which is expected to generate multiple benefits, the release said:

Enabling interoperability — A common identification system allows fields to be more easily paired by users and digital farming tools, resulting in increased connectivity and simpler data integration. This will also provide a benefit for farmers, offering improved data insights and cross-supply chain connectivity.
Increasing transparency around regenerative agriculture — Widespread adoption of a unique Global Field ID can significantly reduce risks of double-counting of land-based carbon sequestration or biodiversity improvement claims, enhancing the credibility and trust in land-focused climate finance and supporting existing verification protocols.
Enhancing traceability — Assigning a shared identifier to each field will make it simpler to establish an uninterrupted chain between agricultural input, field practices and crop supply chains.

The release said the service is currently available in France and the United Kingdom and will be progressively released in Brazil, the U.S. and key European agricultural markets in 2023, with plans for further expansion in coverage and features going forward, the release said.

“We believe that Global Field ID is an indispensable step to break ‘data siloes’ and make information sharing simpler, reducing time spent on information aggregation, accelerating the spread of precision agriculture and the mobilization of climate finance that are necessary to drive efficiency, while preserving soils long term health,” Davide Ceper, Varda CEO, said in the release. “We are proud to be partnering with two industry leaders recognized for their sustainability credentials and are eager to engage with many more companies to establish Global Field ID as an industry standard, accelerating the transformation of our food systems.”

Feroz Sheikh, chief information and digital officer for Syngenta, said digital technology will help growers maximize yield, while taking care of the planet through sustainable farming practices.

“Working together with Yara and through Varda’s Global Field ID system we strive to improve connectivity between digital farming tools, making it more open, faster, and more efficient with the data owner’s consent,” he said in the release. “We invite other industry players to join this collaboration to improve the interoperability of systems to the benefit of farmers and the entire innovation ecosystem.”

NASA sowing seeds for space salsa

Wed, 11 Jan 2023 19:46:21 GMT

Extolling the benefits of fresh salsa, NASA scientists are working hard to bring Taco Tuesday to space.

Just imagine biting into a crisp tortilla chip with spicy salsa after weeks of nothing but ultraprocessed and freeze-dried meals, packaged in vacuumed sealed plastic pouches. The punchy, fresh flavor of a peppery salsa will wake up tired taste buds and galvanize spirits.

That’s exactly what NASA scientists are hoping to achieve with series of experiments dubbed the “thrive in space” trials. Scientists began growing and testing lettuce, tomatoes and pepper seeds in 2016 with the goal to develop technologies to grow, harvest and eat fresh vegetable favorites in space, supporting astronauts on long-duration space travel missions.

Related news: Future shines bright for organic research: Q&A with OFRF’s Brise Tencer

A recent win for the “thrive in space” trials was the NASA’s Plant Habitat-04 experiment, which successfully grew and harvested hatch chili peppers from seeds, arriving at the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s 22nd commercial resupply services mission in June 2021.

“Growing colorful vegetables in space can have long-term benefits for physical and psychological health,” Matt Romeyn, principal investigator for the PH-04 experiment, said in a news release. “We are discovering that growing plants and vegetables with colors and smells helps to improve astronauts’ well-being.”

Growing hatch chilies for intergalactic salsa

A team with Kennedy Space Center’s Exploration Research and Technology programs planted the seeds in one of the three plant growth chambers nestled in an orbiting laboratory in which astronauts raise crops. The peppers grew for about four months before astronauts harvested the small, but mighty chilies. The chilies were chopped and enjoyed in a zesty, fresh salsa on tacos. It is the first time NASA astronauts have cultivated a crop of chili peppers on the space station from seeds to maturity, according to the release.

“The challenge is the ability to feed crews in low-Earth orbit, and then to sustain explorers during future missions beyond low-Earth orbit to destinations including the moon, as part of the Artemis program, and eventually to Mars,” Romeyn said in the release. “We are limited to crops that don’t need storage, or extensive processing.”

What’s more, crew members in space can lose some sense of taste and smell as a temporary side effect of living in microgravity, and they may prefer spicy foods or seasoned foods. Peppers are high in vitamin C and other nutrients, making peppers an excellent candidate for testing on the space station, Romeyn said.

Fresh vegetables for future missions

One outcome of the “thrive in space” experiments is the ability to cultivate edible plants may help support future Artemis missions at NASA. Together with commercial and international partners, the Artemis missions will establish a sustainable presence on the moon to prepare for future missions to Mars. According to NASA, the “thrive in space” experiments are building a knowledge base for scientists to understand how to cultivate plants beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

“The biggest challenge is the room you need to grow these edibles. Just to give you a general number, it would take about 50 square meters of soil to provide enough food for one person,” Howard Levine, space biology scientist with NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division, said in a news release.

“So, as we transport our crew members to Mars, the plants we grow will provide them with a token amount of their nutritional needs,” Levine added. “That said, there’s an often overlooked or minimized aspect to growing plants in space and that’s the psychological benefit to our crew members; they’ve often told us when they’re able to take care of the plants on board the space station, they really appreciate it as gives them a remembrance of what it’s like on Earth.”

Another added benefit to growing plants in space, according to Levine, is that they also suck up carbon dioxide, produce oxygen and purify any water that passes through them.

Walmart invests in indoor vertical grower Plenty

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 07:27:37 GMT

In what could be the first move of its kind for a massive retailer, Walmart is investing in an indoor vertical leafy greens grower: Plenty Unlimited Inc., based in South San Francisco.

Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart’s equity investment is part of a $400 million Series E funding round that’s still subject to a regulatory approval and is part of a broader strategic partnership to use this technology to deliver fresh produce to Walmart retail stores, according to a news release.

Walmart will also join Plenty’s board of directors.

The long-term commercial agreement allows Walmart to source Plenty’s leafy greens for all its California stores from Plenty’s Compton farm starting later in 2022. Walmart is the first large U.S. retailer to significantly invest in vertical farming, according to the release.

“We believe Plenty is a proven leader in a new era of agriculture, one that offers pesticide-free, peak-flavor produce to shoppers every day of the year,” Walmart U.S. Chief Merchandising Officer Charles Redfield said in the release. “This partnership not only accelerates agricultural innovation, but reinforces our commitment to sustainability, by delivering a new category of fresh that is good for people and the planet.”

Learn more about salad vegetables.

Plenty’s indoor farming architecture combines engineering, software and sustainable crop science to grow multiple crops on one platform — fast. With many U.S patents, this proprietary tech focuses on efficient use of water and land. Also, by building farms closer to the consumer, Plenty helps reduce transportation and food waste, keeping items fresher for longer in 100% recyclable product packaging.

Vertical farming can supplement traditional farming practices to help increase food supply and alleviate current challenges on the food system in a sustainable way.

“Our farms can be sited anywhere, allowing us to put fresh fruits, greens and vegetables on shelf at all times, at speed, for maximum freshness,” Plenty CEO Arama Kukutai said in the release. “This is a game-changer for the agritech industry.”

Walmart has about 10,500 stores and clubs under 48 banners in 24 countries and eCommerce websites. With fiscal year 2021 revenue of $559 billion, Walmart employs 2.2 million associates worldwide.

Besides Plenty’s California headquarters, the company operates an indoor plant science research facility in Laramie, Wyo. Also, Plenty is building a vertical, indoor farm in Compton, Calif.

Related news:

Bayer and Ginkgo Bioworks close deal creating a partnership to develop biological products for agriculture

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 23:13:24 GMT

Bayer has announced the company has closed its previously announced transaction with Ginkgo Bioworks to begin a multiyear strategic partnership to accelerate research and development of biological products for agriculture.

The transaction includes the divestment of Bayer’s West Sacramento Biologics Research & Development site, and its internal discovery and lead optimization platform, according to a news release.

With the close of this transaction, the biologics business, which is part of Bayer’s Crop Science Division, will also be able to further engage the open innovation ecosystem and build upon its leading position as a partner of choice for innovators and scientists around the world, according to the release.

Joyn Bio, the joint venture created by Bayer and Ginkgo Bioworks in 2017, will be integrated into Ginkgo Bioworks to enable the continued advancement of Joyn Bio’s innovative nitrogen fixation platform, the release said. As part of the agreement, Bayer retains the right to commercialize the technology to complement synthetic fertilizer use in the coming years.

Bayer is now the first major partner of Ginkgo Bioworks’ expanded agricultural biologicals platform, entering into a new collaboration focused on important programs in the areas of crop protection, nitrogen fixation and carbon sequestration to identify next generation biologicals that provide clear benefits to growers, the release said.

“Biological solutions play a critical role in the agricultural innovation ecosystem, and we see tremendous opportunity for these products to add even more value for agriculture in the future,” Robert Reiter, head of R&D at Bayer’s Crop Science Division, said in the release. “The open innovation approach will accelerate the product pipeline and will make sure that we bring high-quality biological solutions and innovative technologies to the market faster.”

Ginkgo Bioworks aims to develop and advance agricultural microbial solutions across crops and geographies through broad, fully-enabled technical platforms that address diverse market needs. Ginkgo Bioworks will work independently with different partners in the discovery of microbial-derived products for agriculture, the release said.

“Ginkgo is committed to harnessing the power of programmable biology to enable sustainable food production and food security worldwide,” said Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks. “We look forward to partnering with Bayer and other innovative companies, and to bringing more applications on to Ginkgo’s expanded agricultural biologicals platform so that growers worldwide can develop breakthrough products.”