Two agritech giants have merged forces to give farmers the upper hand in accessing new autonomous tractor technology that can convert traditional tractors for auto use and maximise farm business efficiency. Based in California, Fieldin, which claims to be the world’s largest smart farm operations management company for high-value crops, has just announced it has acquired Midnight Robotics, a company that specialises in agricultural autonomous driving. The acquisition creates a first-of-its-kind combination of a sensor-based operational farming platform with autonomous driving technologies to empower growers in the day-to-day management of their farms. Fieldin is already deploying its combined autonomous farming…
Author: Chris McCullough
Chris McCullough
Chris McCullough is a freelance multi-media journalist based in Northern Ireland and specialises in all aspects of agriculture. He has spent the past 18 years travelling the globe hunting for the best stories in food, farming and politics. He has reported extensively from overseas, mostly throughout Europe but also from USA, Canada, India, Australia and African countries on various topics. He has won a number of awards for his photos and journalism and is always on the lookout for his next exclusive.
Funding has been awarded to a UK research team to enable closer examination of technology that can remove and recover phosphorus from cattle slurry. The team includes experts from Harper Adams University and two commercial companies, Elentec Ltd and Merigan Ltd. Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, in partnership with the UK’s Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), has awarded public funding to a series of feasibility projects directed at transforming farm-based food production in the UK. The Harper Adams project will test Elentec’s novel technology to remove and recover phosphorus from cattle slurry. The technology works via…
Norwegian company N2 Applied has raised a further £7 million (NOK83 million) to speed up commercial availability of its technology which converts livestock manure into sustainable fertiliser whilst trapping greenhouse gases. With the dairy industry under pressure to reduce its methane emissions, and under close global scrutiny, a huge drive is under way to develop technology that can assist with this. Investors participating in the latest round, which was led by N2 Applied CEO Carl Hansson and follows a similar level of investment late last year, include Blue River Invest, Holta Invest, Joh.Johansen/NorgesGruppen and Ramussengruppen, in addition to some new…
A Belfast-based company (Northern Ireland) developing automated livestock monitoring technology has announced the closure of its US$2.5m seed investment round. CattleEye has closed the investment round from a syndicate led by Techstart Ventures and including Paris-based venture capital firm Seventure Partners and Turntide Technologies, a Silicon Valley venture backed by Amazon. The investment will be used to bring to market CattleEye’s autonomous livestock welfare and performance monitoring product, which can increase animal welfare levels and reduce carbon emission intensity by around 0.5 tonne per cow, per year. The first version of the product detects locomotion deviations, which are highly correlated…
With global agriculture focused on reducing the use of herbicides, US machinery company AGCO has joined forces with other specialists to create new targeted sprayer technology. Using targeted sprayer technology can ultimately reduce the use of herbicides as it only applies the chemicals where necessary, rather than the traditional blanket treatments. AGCO has entered into a proof of concept (PoC) collaboration agreement with Robert Bosch GmbH, BASF Digital Farming GmbH and Raven Industries Inc. (NASDAQ:RAVN). Their collective goal is to make the application of crop protection products more effective and efficient by reducing crop input costs while driving farm and…
German agricultural machinery manufacturer Claas has invested in a Dutch robotic start-up company to step into the autonomous tractor market. The company has entered into a cooperative venture with AgXeed BV and acquired a minority shareholding in its international funding round as a mark of their commitment. Claas recognises the farming industry must further increase productivity in the decades ahead to meet the needs of a growing global population. However, with the number of people employed in the industry continuing to decline, and skilled labour increasingly difficult to find, robotic machines can help alleviate this in the future. The agricultural machinery industry…
A US company that develops unique weed robots that zap their prey with lasers has just unveiled its third generation models. Based in Seattle, Carbon Robotics manufactures its Autonomous Weeder which uses a combination of robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and laser technology to safely and effectively drive through crop fields to identify, target and eliminate weeds. Unlike other weeding technologies, the robots utilise high-power lasers to eradicate weeds through thermal energy, without disturbing the soil. As per normal, by operating automated robots farmers can reduce their herbicides use, reduce labour and costs while improving crop yields. Carbon Robotics CEO and Founder,…
Picking tomatoes can be costly and laborious especially when labour is in short supply but robotic help is now available. Japanese company inaho Inc has set up a subsidiary company inaho Europe BV with a base in the Netherlands, and has developed a new robot for harvesting snack tomatoes. The company’s goal is to devise robotic solutions to help boost agriculture production, it has previously launched an AI-equipped asparagus harvesting robot back in 2019. The European arm of the company officially started operations on April 1, 2021 and it has launched the tomato robotic harvester as its first product. The European…
Dutch dairy equipment specialist Lely has entered into an official partnership with barn manufacturer ID Agro to produce modular feed kitchens to service the robotic feeding of livestock. Since introducing the first modular feed kitchen in 2017, both specialists have continued work on the system to ensure it is an even better match for Lely’s Vector feeding system. With this partnership, both organisations have given the green flag to distribute the modular feed kitchen via the Lely centre network. This allows ID Agro to expand its sales market, while Lely centres can offer their customers a complete automatic feeding system. For…
More power, more tech and a better design are the three key attributes of the new series of Arion 400 tractors just launched by Claas. With around 30,000 units sold worldwide, the Claas Arion 400 range is by far the best selling tractors for the German manufacturer. Thanks to its popularity Claas has given the range a makeover to mark the introduction of the Stage V emissions standard. Production of the new Claas Arion 400 tractors will start in June but they will only be available in the UK and Ireland from this autumn. The series now includes seven models ranging from 90 to 155hp maximum output…
