Electric Autonomous Tractor – Hitting the Vineyards

Touch the Soil News #1765 (Feature Photo California Vineyards – CCA SA 3.0 Unported, Brocken Imaglory)    Monarch Tractors, is a California company, that is just coming to the forefront with its autonomous electric tractor. You drive the tractor, it remembers what you did, and then does it on its own. You can read the…

Read more

Global Food Price Escalation Continues

  Touch the Soil News #1764 (Feature Photo – Food Price Graph – Kelp4Less)    The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is division of the United Nations. Among a variety of duties, the FAO maintains the international Food Price Index. By following price increases in the categories of meat, dairy, cereal grains, vegetable oils and…

Read more

Planted Detroit – Making the News

Things in agriculture are different today – especially when there is an opportunity to merge a variety of talents with technology. Enter Planted Detroit. Founded by Tom Adamczyk in 2018, the company’s efforts have landed themselves in the news. Planted Detroit’s goals are to shorten the supply chain. You can learn more about them, directly…

Read more

Farm on a City Rooftop with a Store Below

Touch the Soil News #1762 (Feature Photo – Brian McCarthy’s Farm Store – photo courtesy of Brian McCarthy’s store Instagram)    In Cork, Ireland, a city of some 215,000 people, the instability of the world’s supply chains inspired a rooftop farm. The success of the farm, precipitated the opening of a store below to sell…

Read more

PhytlSigns – Emerging Technology to take the Vital Signs of your Horticultural Crops

Touch the Soil News #1761 (Feature Photo – Tomato Plants – CCA SA 3.0 Karin Weigel)    A small privately held Swiss company called Vivent, has developed technology to take a plant’s vital signs. They call this innovation PhytlSigns. Another word for the technology is electrophysiology. The goal is to get pre-warning of your horticultural…

Read more

NASA – Jumps on the Bandwagon to Feed the World

Positive Future #879 (Feature photo – NASA Farming Tests – Courtesy of NASA) The United Nations projects that earth will have to feed another 2.3 billion people by 2050. That’s roughly 80 million more people each year for the next 29 years – roughly 220,000 more people each day. Currently the world’s population stands at…

Read more

The Rise of Farm Technology

Positive Future #878 (Feature photo – FarmBot watering soil – Courtesy of FarmBot) Agricultural technology, often called AgTech, is attracting billions of dollars of start-up money each year. National boundaries are fading in a world that is bringing about a new profession – agtech consultants that travel the globe, helping clients understand and use agricultural…

Read more

Defining the World of Controlled Environment Agriculture

Positive Future #876 (Feature photo – Greenhouses – CCA SA 2.0 Generic, Dennis Simpson) Operating under the name of Shenandoah Growers for many years, the company has changed its name to Soli Organic – yes, the spelling is correct. While indoor farming has been defined by hydroponics and soil-less growing mediums, Soli Organic’s production platform…

Read more