The Future of Agriculture is Already Here — 5 Good Food Ideas
1. An Open Information Collective for Farmers: As costs increase and farmers become ever more reliant on agtech solutions, a social networking platform has emerged to help farmers share data and learn from each other in a fast changing business climate. The Farmers Business Network (FBN) is a farmer-to-farmer information network whose members share seed information, input pricing data, and agronomic analytics with their peers (the data is anonymized before it’s shared). Creating an open platform for this information enables farmers as a collective to learn what’s working and what isn’t. FBN also enables farmers to understand how they’re performing versus their peers and whether they are getting the best prices and most optimal yields. Furthermore, the network consolidates purchasing power so that farmers can buy inputs at a bulk rate much lower than what they could otherwise secure on their own. As of last summer, there were over 2,500 farmers using the platform.
2. The Future of Agriculture is Already Here: Writer Sarah Baird travels to Japan to find the future of agriculture — indoor, vertical farming managed by robots. With less arable land than most countries and a large population fearful of another catastrophe like Fukushima that could devastate its food supply, Japan has turned to agtech to protect its current food supply and grow its future’s. As more people exit jobs in the countryside, farms are moving indoors adjacent to urban areas where they can supply the larger urban populations. These farms are increasingly remote-controlled by artificial intelligence and machine learning. Drones are used to monitor and fertilize crops and heavy machinery can be operated by remote control. All of this creates a real-time data collection stream and feedback loop that enables the process to learn and adjust. And, it’s all happening indoors. The system is regulated and protected from the vagaries and unpredictability of what’s happening outside, particularly related to rising temperatures and natural disasters. As noted in the piece, however, there is still a lot of work to do in order for this innovation to be an acceptable present-day solution.
3. Robot Bees to the Rescue: More robot news from Japan! According to the USDA, animal pollinators are necessary for the existence of 90% of our flowers and a third of human consumed food crops. As bee populations dwindle, there’s rising concern about how we’ll sustain this critical ecological function. While still in concept form, Japanese scientists believes they have a solution — robot bees. The scientists are taking small drones and attaching them with gelled horsehairs that can absorb pollen and transport it from one flower to another by remote control. Eventually, the researchers hope that high-functioning remote control robot bees could assist real bees with their ecological responsibilities.
4. Buy One, Give One Model for Seeds: Borrowing from the innovative social enterprise model employed by Warby Parker and TOMS, Mauro Seed Company, founded by David Mauro, donates a package of seeds to charitable organizations for every one that’s purchased from the company. While still a small outfit largely run out of Mauro’s basement, the company donated enough seeds to grow one millions pounds of food during its first year of business in 2016. For the donations, Mauro specifically targets organizations whose aim it is to teach communities, namely youth, how to grow food.
5. App Distributes Surplus Food from Groceries to Charities: The FoodCloud platform serves as an intermediary to donate surplus food from grocery stores, farms, and food manufacturers to local charities. The customer journey process starts with a grocery store or food manufacturer reporting through the app that surplus food is available. The algorithm then matches to and alerts local charities that a food donation is available, so that the charity can then select and pick up the food. In some instances, FoodCloud can even stores and distributes that food on behalf of the charity. Launched in Ireland, the FoodCloud platform currently hosts over 1,200 businesses and 3,600 charities and is expanding fast through a partnership with Tesco UK.
Originally published at www.thymefries.com on February 13, 2017.
