UPDATES FROM THE WGCIT The Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology was created to link Western Growers members with innovators in the agtech space. Below are news updates from the Center’s startups.
Bio S.I. has expanded its team by welcoming Scott Short as Business Development Lead-Specialty Crops. Mr. Short comes to the team adding 25 years of experience, ranging from farming, finance, agribusiness insurance and digital agronomic management platforms. In addition to company expansion, Bio S.I. is proud to announce new partnerships in California, giving growers exposure to Bio S.I. products from Chico to Bakersfield and covering a broad spectrum of specialty/permanent crops. New partners include Buttonwillow Warehouse Company, Coastal Growers Supply Inc, Farmer’s Fertilizer, Grow West and North Valley Ag Services. Agtools has received its first patent: Supply Chain Intelligence – Systems and Methods. This journey started with Ideaship and leading scientists from Japan who researched and analyzed the technology to conclude: worldwide impact, scalability and multiple usages in the Food and Agriculture Industry. Agtools 6 underpin technologies – from data gathering, phenological weather patterns, algorithms, sustainability data for S1, S2 and S3 reporting, industry calculators and neuroscience principles to optimize training methods and systems to enhance user data interpretation and decision-making efficacy will keep improving our industry. Keeping up with AI journey, Agtools got 2nd place at the Ultimate AI Pitch hosted by Amazon nationwide featuring solutions revolutionizing industries through artificial intelligence. The water method developed by AgMonitor under a grant of the California Energy Commission was recently approved by the State Water Board. It leverages existing electricity “smart meters” and AI algorithms to re-create pump curves and provide a low-cost option to family farms in probationary basins. AgMonitor supports the four methods in the Board guidelines to measure ground water extraction volumes, including satellite-based ETa data to measure water supply (wells and turnouts) and crop water demand (farmed fields). Burro started its journey to solve the relentless labor problem faced by farmers in table grapes and berry harvesting with its namesake Burro autonomous mobile robot. Burro has deployed over 350 robots worldwide with the ability to seamlessly sync to and follow a worker acting as a personal, unmanned utility task vehicle (UTV). Burros also autonomously navigate crop rows, learn and repeat routes and transport goods, just to name a few applications. Burros have traveled over 75,000 miles of autonomous operation and are trusted by many of the top growers in the world. Burro has now set its sights on addressing similar business problems in nurseries with its rugged, easy-to-use Burro Grande. Grande can tow up to 15,000 lbs, both indoors and outdoors, to any destination on your farm. Grandes have pre- launched to several customers in the U.S. and Australia. The official launch of Burro Grande will come at the Cultivate ‘24 conference in Columbus, Ohio on July 14th. Carbon Robotics received an investment from NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm. This underscores the power of AI in transforming farming worldwide, as well as Carbon Robotics’ leadership and innovation in the industry. Leveraging the power of 24 NVIDIA GPUs, the LaserWeeder processes 4.7 million high-resolution images per hour, offering unparalleled AI-driven plant detection and identification to target and eliminate weeds with lasers. Carbon Robotics was also recognized on the 2024 CNBC Disruptor 50 list. The CNBC Disruptor 50 is a prestigious honor recognizing the fastest-growing and most innovative private companies that are transforming their industries and the world through technology. Carbon Robotics’ inclusion underscores its pivotal role in revolutionizing farming worldwide and establishing new benchmarks for innovation and sustainability in agriculture.
AgMonitor
Agtools
Bio S.I.
Burro
Carbon Robotics
32 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com July | August 2024
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