Precision Pays

GM crops and precision farming benefits are being pushed back onto the national agenda in the UK, with the focus to help beat climate change, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper.

Former cabinet  minister Chris Smith, now chair of the Environment Agency, addressed farmers at the annual conference of National Farmers’ Union, saying that “climate change will create new demands on land and environmental resources–and could provide opportunities for novel crops and systems.”

Intense lobbying by food companies, the growing significance of climate change, recent international food crises and shortages and a major independent Royal Society report have all helped to give the government the authority to put GM back on the national agenda. The controversial technology was the focus of intense campaigns including destruction of GM crop trials by environmentalists in the 1990s, and last month came under renewed attack from academics and organic food campaigners at the Oxford Real Farming Conference.

Lord Smith will say: “We can already see wildlife following climate change – the mayfly is now found some 40 miles further north than before and warmer winters and wetter summers are thought to be a major factor in the rapid decline of pollinating insects with UK bee populations, in particular, falling by 10-15% over the last two years.

“The reliance on seasonal weather patterns means that farming will follow climate change too. My own personal view is that we probably need to be readier to explore GM options, coupled of course with proper environmental safeguards, in adapting to the changes that the climate will bring.”

The GM industry now involves 14 million farmers in 25 countries who are growing 134m hectares of GM crops around the world. This is a 7% increase compared with last year.

If you’re headed to Orlando next week to catch the first-ever world-class AG CONNECT Expo, there will be plenty of opportunities to learn about the latest precision technologies from around the world, as well as ‘kick the tires’.

New products and technologies will be showcased during the January 13-15 trade show at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. You can also check out some of these products posted on the show’s Web site, where you can even rate the products.

Many educational sessions led by industry experts are scheduled every day. Topics range from top tech trends, top shops, trading machinery, crop marketing, robotics and more. And you can also register to attend smaller interactive educational breakout sessions on such topics as energy, technology, farm management, family business management, risk management, high yield and a plan for success workshop.

We’ll have reports from the show, so stay tuned. And if you’re into the social media tool Twitter, you can follow along with everyone who posts at #agconnect.

Post Update: Listen to a show preview with ZimmComm’s Chuck Zimmerman in his weekly podcast, the ZimmCast below:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

RapidEye, the only geospatial solutions provider to own and operate a constellation of five identical Earth Observation satellites, have successfully run a Precision Farming pilot project for Agro Risk Euro Scan GmbH ( ARES ). The project is called Crop Scan and supports the German farming community in agricultural planning. ARES acts as RapidEye’s service partner for Precision Farming solutions.

From March to September 2009, RapidEye imaged 8,000 hectare multiple times in Germany and provided ARES with up-to-date ground cover maps for different crop types such as wheat, rapeseed, barley, corn and sugar beets each month. The maps helped farmers requesting this product to better plan their agricultural fields and crops for the upcoming months.

Timeliness and accuracy of information is key when providing frequent agricultural monitoring. The RapidEye constellation of five satellites has the unrivaled ability to image individual fields, counties, states or countries on a frequent revisit cycle. Customers can receive field-based information including crop identification, crop area determination, crop condition monitoring, and growth stage determination.

“The results of the project were extremely satisfying, and through this new partnership with ARES we will be able to strengthen our position in the precision agriculture market. We are looking forward to going operational with this service in Germany in conjunction with ARES in 2010. We also expect that we will have additional opportunities to partner with them in the future on other ventures,” commented Michael Prechtel, Head of Sales and Marketing for RapidEye.

I hope, as a precision farmer, you’ve added a ‘communicate with consumers’ recurring task to your weekly if not daily chore list. Whether you do it locally or globally, through talking or through social media, you should join the conversation to support your cause.

Part of that effort is to monitor what’s said about your noble profession. To that end, check out this NY Times op-ed piece “Can Biotech Food Cure World Hunger?” It features a variety of opinions–from economists and activists to nutritionists, university and thinktank folks.

There’s good give and take in these messages, and excellent food for thought. And, if you want to have Google help you track down such stories and send them to your email, it’s real easy to do. Sign up for a Google email account (Gmail) if you don’t have one, then visit Google Alerts and type in numerous words (such as agriculture, farming, farms, GMO, livestock, food, biotech, corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, USDA, etc.) that Google will find in stories, then email those story links to you.

Farmers Edge Precision Consulting based in Winnipeg, Manitoba has become a fast-growing business helping farmers cut fertilizer costs and increase profits. The two agronomy experts who started the company just received an entrepreneur award, according to a report in The Gov Monitor.

Farmers were so impressed with an innovative crop fertilization service developed by Curtis MacKinnon and Wade Barnes that they urged them to take it to market, giving them the push they needed to strike out on their own. Since that initial start four years ago, Farmers Edge Precision Consulting has become a fast-growing business that is helping farmers across the Prairies and as far away as Russia improve their practices and profits. For this success, Wade, 34, and Curtis, 33, have won BDC’s Young Entrepreneur Award for Manitoba.

Farmers Edge helps take the guesswork out of farming. It combines remote sensing equipment and technology to redefine how farmers apply fertilizer to their fields to increase crop yields. The business is helping grain and oilseed farmers increase their profits by $15 to $100 per acre, while contributing to a 15 to 25% decrease in fertilizer application. Now covering 750,000 acres across the Prairies, Farmers Edge has grown to 10 management partners, 34 full-time and 11 seasonal employees, along with 17 consulting partners who are re-sellers of the services. Farmers Edge has just opened its own soil-testing laboratory, has taken its concept to large corporate farms in Russia and is constantly exploring new ideas.

“Before we got started, I was working in the fertilizer business, where research had been done on variable rate technology, but no one had found a way to make it viable,” explains Wade. “Then I started working with Curtis, who is gifted in technology, and together we decided to reinvent the wheel.” Wade hit on the idea of using remote sensing to map out the varying fertilizer needs throughout a field, and Curtis found a way to make fertilizer machines vary their output according to that map. When farmers saw what Farmers Edge could do, the service sold itself.

The two agronomy experts attribute the fast growth of Farmers Edge to the talented team and the unique ownership model they have put in place. That includes a design whereby territory managers take equity in the company. “We have been fortunate to find key people who share our drive,” says Curtis. “That has allowed us to keep growing and expanding.”

Curtis and Wade see expansion as a way of reducing risk. “Agriculture is so influenced by weather that if you are regionalized, one weather disaster could virtually wipe you out,” explains Wade. “Expanding into other regions reduces that risk.” They’re also always on the lookout for possible new ventures. “We’re very quick to seize opportunities. If we have an idea, we chase it.” That led them to Russia in 2006. Since then, Farmers Edge has been developing business in Russia and the Ukraine, tapping into the large corporate farm market.

Satellite photo by RapidEye - Illinois

German-based RapidEye, who uses a constellation of five satellites to photograph earth for numerous industries, partnered with Canadian companies GeoFarm and Agri-Trend to supply growing season images to farmers across Canada.

In a collaborative effort, GeoFarm, Agri-Trend, and RapidEye began working together at the beginning of 2009 to offer enhanced satellite imagery solutions to Canadian clients by offering “near real-time” satellite imagery for agriculture use backed by superior agronomics. The RapidEye satellite system was designed to meet the needs of precision agriculture, as it is the only commercial satellite system that acquires data in the red-edge spectral band. This band provides specific information about the chlorophyll content, and therefore nitrogen status of the crops.

“RapidEye provided high quality imagery products of different types on a ‘field order by field order’ basis to our Canadian customers over a wide range of crop types and conditions. This led to a variety of precision agriculture decisions and applications. With Agri-Trend Agri-Coaches™ providing groundtruthing and agronomic insight, the value of these informative images was understood from a practical agronomy standpoint for the ultimate benefit of our growers,” says Warren Bills, President of GeoFarm Solutions Inc.

Customers benefited from multiple captures of 5 meter resolution, multi-spectral imagery (red, green, blue, near infrared and red edge) of their fields throughout this year’s season. Products such as bare ground, chlorophyll and ground cover maps were delivered via the Internet to farmers, ag-retailers and agronomic consultants.

RapidEye, a German-based GIS mapping technology provider, is working with a France company to test and deliver biomass maps that can help farmers improve Nitrogen efficiency in wheat and canola fields, as reported by Vector1Media.

RapidEye provided S2B’s VISIOPLAINE platform with biomass maps to support nitrogen fertilization of canola fields for five regions from early winter 2008 to early spring 2009. In June 2009, RapidEye delivered chlorophyll maps for 2 different areas in France.

The results and field measurements are being tested, analyzed, and confirmed this year before introducing this solution into the wheat market in 2010. The cooperatives and scientific institutes contributed information collected in the fields, whereas RapidEye was responsible for the analysis from the remote sensing perspective, and delivered an intermediate product in the form of biomass and chlorophyll maps.

Based on these maps, S2B was able to make recommendations for nitrogen fertilization in canola and wheat fields to the farming community through their VISIOPLAINE platform. “In early 2009, S2B and RapidEye entered into a strategic partnership agreement for all remote sensing projects that VISIOPLAINE plans over the next three years.

Through our partnership with S2B’s VISIOPLAINE platform, we will increase RapidEye’s visibility in the French Precision Farming market.” said Michael Prechtel, Head of Sales and Marketing at RapidEye. Future projects with S2B include Precision Farming services for sunflower, potatoes and sugarbeet. RapidEye’s contributions to these projects include identifying variabilities of biophysical parameters within fields such as nitrogen content and leaf area index.

Popular Science magazine did a nice job providing readers with a glimpse into the precision agriculture research that is needed to grow twice as much food by 2050. The writer talked about how this challenge is everyone’s problem, but scientists are hard at work fomenting a second green revolution.

Here are the research projects that the magazine chose:
1. Sahara Forest Project — Greenhouses using seawater and solar power to grow cash crops in the desert.
2. Soil sensors — Research at Iowa State University into wireless soil sensors that may help farmers use water, fertilizer and other inputs more efficiently.
3. Improved rice — Researchers hope to turn this staple crop into a super rice that grows faster in warmer and drier climates by transforming its photosynthesis process.
4. Replace fertilizer — Michigan State researchers attempt to replace/reduce commercial fertilizer use with microbes. They are currently field testing microbial cocktails (Bio-Soil Enhancers) that can simultaneously reduce the need for phosphorous and nitrogen, protect plants against pathogens and boost yields in virtually any type of crop.
5. HarvestChoice — The Gates Foundation is funding data compilation of Africa’s agricultural systems and land use to increase yields to feed the growing continent.
6. Satellite soil moisture — NASA and USDA are working to monitor soil moisture levels around the globe to hopefully improve crop forecasting.
7. Robot labor — The challenge of American specialty crop growers finding human labor is increasing difficult. Current research using robots with a variety of sensors will help machines scan for fungus, growth rate, soil moisture, humidity, light levels and more. But cost of such technology is the current challenge.
8. Rebuilding soil — Scientists hope to turn waste into a charcoal that, when applied to degraded unproductive soil, will attract microorganisms to help plants access nutrients, hold more water and lock in carbon. Companies are working on portable machines to produce biochar on-site.
9. Make supercrops — Research is bioenginering the African staple crop cassava root to turn it into the PowerBar of the vegetable world. They’re attempting to increase protein, add vitamins, increase shelf life, add virus resistance and eliminate cyanide-producing toxins in the root.

Encouraging all farmers, not just the technology adopters, to use precision fertilizer Best Management Practices (BMPs) was the theme of an opening session talk by Clyde Graham, VP of Strategy and Alliances with the Canadian Fertilizer Institute.

Speaking at the bi-annual precision agriculture InfoAg conference in Springfield, Ill., today, Graham cited the importance of a global 4Rs BMP effort with their US counterpart, The Fertilizer Institute, and global science-based organization the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI).

As environmental issues mount and become more personal, the 4Rs—Right source, Right rate, Right time and Right place—can help farmers and the public understand how fertilizer can contribute to sustainability goals for agriculture.

Listen to Graham as he outlines the need to achieve social, economic and environmental goals, and make sure farmers measure their performance to demonstrate an ability to operate without undue regulation.

Listen to part of Clyde’s presentation:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Precision Pays coverage of the InfoAg 2009 Conference is sponsored by: .

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

High returns: Collector T. Soundiah inspecting a field of brinjal, raised under precision farming at Mangalam in Tiruchi district. Photo by M. Moorthy, courtesy of The Hindu

Part of India’s National Agriculture Development Program (NADP) promotes a precision farming technique that is gaining popularity, according to a recent story in India’s national newspaper, The Hindu.

Over the past two years, precision farming techniques have been promoted in 900 hectares across the district in various crops including sugarcane, maize, brinjal, tomato, onion, tapioca, sunflower and groundnut.

With installation of drip irrigation system and fertigation (for application of soluble fertilizers) units being essential requirements, farmers could avail a 50 per cent subsidy for the equipment. A farmer could avail a maximum subsidy of Rs.65,000 a hectare, including the cent per cent subsidy of Rs.25,000 for soluble fertilizer, said Collector T. Soundiah, after inspecting some of the precision farming fields in the district on Tuesday.

The higher yield achieved through the drip irrigation systems and fertigation, under which the soluble fertilizer was applied through the drip irrigation system, has been an attraction for farmers.

“This is the first time we have taken up cultivation of brinjal and the results has been encouraging so far,” said A. Ramasamy, who along with his brother A. Easwaran, has raised the vegetable in two acres at Mangalam village in the drought-prone Thathaiyengarpet union. Mr. Ramasamy, who has grown two different hybrid varieties, even takes the longer variety to the Salem Uzhavar Sandhai where such brinjals find a better market.

A cluster-based approach was also being promoted under the scheme, so that small farmers in villages could come together to avail the subsidy given under the NADP in clusters of 20 hectares each. Farmers could achieve up to 50 per cent increase in yield by adopting precision farming techniques, according to S. Robert Vincent, Deputy Director of Horticulture.

Responding to the request of some farmers, Mr. Soundiah said the district administration would take steps to get subsidy for installing solar-powered fences around their fields. Farmers could come forward to avail the subsidy for purchase of refrigerated vehicles, under the National Horticulture Mission, for transporting their produce, he said.