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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

agtech

The UK’s Small Robot Company Equity Crowdfunds its Precision Ag Robots

Based in the UK, the Small Robot Company is actually making its second trip to the crowd for money, and launched its second such campaign earlier this week on CrowdCube.

Equity crowdfunding is a trend we’re watching closely this year. That’s where instead of traditional venture capital, startups let everyday people (with certain restrictions) invest in and receive an actual piece of the company.

Small Robot makes precision agriculture robots that the company hopes will eventually move farmers away from broad chemical spraying of crops and monoculture of plant species in fields. Small Robot has a multi-part, autonomous robot solution it’s building that includes:

  • Tom uses cameras and computer vision to precisely map a field of its plants and weeds
  • Wilma is the AI that analyzes those images to gather per-plant intelligence and weed identification
  • Dick is an autonomous weed zapper that is armed with an electric wand and information from Wilma to precisely electrocute individual weed without the need for chemicals
  • The company will eventually add a third robot, Harry, to its lineup that will do no-till drilling.

Small Robot’s “Tom” robots are currently in the working prototype phase, and in use on 20 farms in the UK. The company aims to ramp up production and manufacturing this year and go live on more farms by the end of 2020.

I spoke with Sam Watson Jones, Co-founder, Small Robot Company by phone this week, and he said his ultimate goal is to empower farms with precision agriculture to such a degree that it’s done on a plant-by-plant level. Farmers will know where each individual seed is planted and automate custom care for each plant as it grows. This means reducing fertilizer use, and planting a variety of crops next to each other to limit the spread of crop disease, maintain nitrogen levels and pollinate more efficiently.

To help it get there, Small Robot is turning to the crowd, again. Previously the company received £1.4 million in non-equity funding from a UK government innovation fund, and in 2018 raised £1.2 million in equity crowdfunding through the CrowdCube platform.

On Monday of this week, Small Robot kicked off its second CrowdCube campaign and has already met its goal of raising £700,000. I asked Watson why his company didn’t go with the traditional VC route this time.

“VCs are a bit different in the UK,” he said, “There are very few early stage VCs to fund stuff that requires more development. We knew we had a load of farmers who were excited about what we could develop. ” Crowdfunding, Watson said “allowed us to get angels and people who would put ten quid in. It’s been a good forum for us to capitalize on the branding and PR.”

As with any investment, there are risks involved, and given that this crowdfunding is happening in the UK, there are restrictions around where people can invest from and how much. Check the campaign’s details for more information.

Small Robot Company is actually the second robotics company we’ve covered that has gone the equity crowdfunding app. On the other end of the meal journey is Miso Robotics, the maker of Flippy, which is using SeedInvest to try and raise a $30 million Series C round.

Small Robot will definitely need to beef up its warchest as it looks to expand outside the UK. Other players in the autonomous precision ag and weed-killing robot space include Australia’s Agerris, which raised $6.5 million (AUSD) last year, and U.S.-based Farmwise, which raised $14.5 million in 2019 as well.

For now though, Small Robot Company’s pitch to big crowds for tiny agriculture seems to be attracting big dollars.

Soil Sensor Company CropX Acquires Irrigation Tools Provider CropMetrics

CropX, which makes sensors to monitor soil conditions on farms, announced today that it has acquired cloud-based irrigation management tool company CropMetrics. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Nebraska-based CropMetrics uses a combination of soil sensors and cloud-based analytics to develop real-time irrigation plans for farmers based on current conditions. CropMetrics has been around for 10 years and manages half a million acres of U.S. farmland .

As we’ve written before, CropX has it’s own digital soil monitoring system for farmers:

There are two components to the CropX product: a hardware sensor and cloud-based software. The CropX sensor is a screw-shaped device that farmers literally screw into the ground. This screw shape is actually one of the ways CropX differentiates itself in the soil analyzing space because the threads of the device give it more surface area than straight tube-shaped sensors. Placing sensors on the threads of a CropX allows water to pass through the sensor not just around it.

As water passes through these sensors, information is sent up to the cloud where CropX’s software analyzes the soil for moisture levels, temperature and electroconductivity to determine salinity levels. Results are sent to a mobile app where the farmer can better manage nutrient management and fertilizer application.

CropX also incorporates aerial imagery, weather data and topography maps to help analyze conditions and advise farmers on appropriate actions for their particular plots of land. The promise of IoT tools like CropX and CropMetrics is their ability to provide data to farmers so they can waste less water, use less fertilizer and better optimize their food growing operations.

There are actually a few soil sensors competing for a place on the farm. Teralytics monitors nitrogen, phosphate and potassium levels in the soil for precise fertilizing, and Arable measures both soil moisture as well as ambient temperatures around the crops.

CropX, which is based in Tel-Aviv, Israel, raised $10 million in August of last year, and has raised nearly $30 million in total. CropMetrics has raised just $1.5 million. CropX said the acquisition will expand its U.S. footprint and product offerings.

Agrisea is Developing Ocean Farms to Grow Rice using Saltwater

Over two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. However, only 2.5 percent of that is fresh water, and roughly 70 percent of that is used for agriculture — which also takes up approximately half of Earth’s land. With climate change and soil degradation, the amount of viable cropland is shrinking at an alarming rate.

So why not grow crops using all of that available saltwater? The short answer is salinity — most of our favorite crops can’t grow in such salty environments. But new startup Agrisea is working to change that. The company creates a floating farm ecosystem that grows crops on saltwater, using only . . . saltwater. No soil, no fertilizers, and no fresh water required. The company is currently participating in life science accelerator IndieBio which includes $250,000 in seed funding. 

“We looked at salt water, and saw a nutrient soup,” Agrisea founder Luke Young told me over the phone on a recent call. He and his co-founder Rory Hornby met while studying plant genetics and tissue regeneration, respectively, at Durham University. They united to develop a way to tap into the natural nutrients that are plentiful in oceans — which already sustain plants like algae — and apply to them to some of the world’s most popular crops.

After two years they developed salt-tolerant rice seeds that could thrive either in oceans or in paddies flooded with seawater. The seeds also don’t produce methane, which is a major climate concern for rice farming. In addition to rice, Agrisea has developed salt-tolerant kale seeds and is working on corn and soy.

Those engineered seeds go into modular floating ocean mini-farms which resemble honeycombs, each roughly a foot in diameter. Each unit contains a double layer of mesh: the top one holds in the plants, while the bottom one acts as a fish nursery. Since they’re not static, the farms can be moved if a major weather event like a hurricane is forecasted.

Initially, the company plans to license out its agriculture platform — including the modular units and salt-tolerant rice seeds — to farming companies and governments on a contract basis. Young said that areas which are experiencing saltwater flooding are, unsurprisingly, the most eager to get their hands on the technology. 

And they might be able to in as little as six months. Young said that companies in some areas struggling with flooding, like Vietnam, are ready to use the saltwater farms as soon as they’re available. However, it’ll likely be two to three years until the tech is available in the U.S., where the farms have to get approval by both the FDA and the USDA. “This is an entirely new technology,” Hornby told me. “It’s not aquaculture, so they’re working to develop a new policy around it.”

With a global population set to reach almost 10 billion by 2050 and a finite amount of land and water, companies are hustling to find more sustainable and economical ways to grow food. Some point to hydroponic farming as a panacea, but it still requires massive amounts of freshwater and energy to function — and some doubt its efficacy. Gene-edited plants (like CRISPR) can be made more drought- or heat-resistant, but they still require water and soil inputs.

That’s why Agrisea’s solution has such potential. Yes, its technology is still chiefly untested — but if successful, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Agrisea’s saltwater farms could massively impact global agriculture. Farmers would no longer have to rely on scarce resources like freshwater and land, and could cut down on methane emissions in the process. In areas that are already dealing with the disastrous effects of climate change, Agrisea’s technology could be a positive sea change for agriculture.

Sitting Down to Dinner? Make Room for Satellite Statisticians

If you live in the US, it’s likely you’ll eat a meal that includes food that was inspected by the USDA when you sit down to dinner tonight. Some of the food on your plate may be certified organic. Some may have had its genome sequenced and been tracked from field to market. The involvement of these entities alone makes for a crowded table, but you’ll need to make room for quite a few more.

Those responsible for NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments aboard the Aqua and Terra satellites will need a place. The statisticians at the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Spatial Analysis Research Section who use the MODIS data from those instruments will also join you. And don’t forget the scientists at NOAA and the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) who work with data generated by the Aqua and Terra satellites. You’ll need a few seats for them, too.

Over the past decades, technology has reached aspects of our lives ranging from communication to medicine, entertainment to manufacturing. It’s of little surprise that tech has reached the food on your table in a big way during this past decade. In addition to the use of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) by the FDA to nip foodborne illness outbreaks in the bud, the FDA and NASA are adding another layer of oversight. Through NASS, they are combining satellite surveillance with statistical analysis to increase crop yields and better serve the interests of agriculture – and by extension, you as the consumer at the dinner table. The information available to farmers and those overseeing food-related government programs is used to increase crop yields and inform crop rotation schedules. It also makes it more likely that you will have a steady source of food for your plate.

Satellite Imagery to the Food on Your Plate

One way that farmers can improve their fortunes is by knowing how much competition they face before they plant a specific crop like potatoes. The USDA makes it possible for farmers and other stakeholders in agriculture, to see what is being grown across the country and in their region. The CropScape – Cropland Data Layer (CDL) data is available at no charge through the use of the CropScape NASS data portal. Those visiting the site can focus on regions and areas of greatest interest to them. Companies that market their products to farmers can also access this data through the portal, providing them with information about what types of products will be in demand during the growing season. Any of these parties can view layers on the map that show the different types of crops.

In addition to the images from MODIS, the information for the layers in the CropScape system comes from agricultural advisors, inspectors, and farmers who upload their data to the system. Because they have worked to identify the crops grown in each field and coders have worked to link the data from those reports to the pixel level on the map, an accurate and timely view of crops across the country is available. Historical data is also available to provide insight into which crops have done well in which regions in prior years.

By using algorithms designed to interpret the red, near-infrared and shortwave infrared of satellites capturing images from the land, the CropScape map can not only differentiate by crop, but also by the stage of crop development. The ability to use this technology to see what is growing successfully and what is not, on a national level, provides farmers with the information they require when deciding what to plant. The bottom line for consumers is a steady supply of produce, either in the form of what was expected in the market, like carrots, or an alternative crop.

For the farmer, this LandSat (Earth-observing) technology, also impacts routine decisions related to harvesting their crops. From the images, it is possible to view a specific area, such as a cranberry bog, to see something as small but significant as the peak harvest time for the cranberries in that bog. The use of this free source translates into valuable, actionable knowledge about when to gather that portion of his crop. It saves guesswork and time, allowing them to plan for the best use of resources related to bringing the crop to market.

Recognizing Drought Before it’s Too Late

Some weather events, like torrential rains or hurricanes, are obviously damaging to crop yields. When one of these hits an area, the effect on crops is immediate. With flooding, seedlings don’t root and more mature crops suffer greatly. The weather and winds from hurricanes do significant damage to crops, silos, and equipment. Accurate forecasts can help farmers delay planting if severe weather is on the way, but once the crops are in and growing, preventive measures can only do so much. 

Severe drought is equally damaging. In severe conditions, crops suffer and yields decline, causing shortages at the market along with higher prices. Unlike rainfall or the atmospheric weather conditions that cause hurricanes, droughts are the result of several factors on the ground in addition to the lack of precipitation. There is another type of drought that is every bit as damaging to crop yields. These “Flash Droughts” can damage crops in a matter of weeks.

Farmers needed a method for detecting flash drought conditions before it was too late to save the crop. NOAA took the lead in the development of the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI). This index gives farmers access to data, at no cost, about the state of moisture in their area. Farmers and other stakeholders can not only view drought information on a national map, but they can also input coordinates and see what the estimates are for conditions in their specific area. The index assesses conditions without precipitation, providing a look at how crops are doing with the irrigation provided by the farmer. For farmers, this information can be used to ensure they have a successful season. For you, it’s a matter of ensuring that the agricultural sector is able to meet consumer needs.

The next time you sit down to dinner, the meal you eat will have been brought to you through the efforts of NASA, NASS, the USDA, NOAA, and the FDA, along with teams of farmers, scientists, analysts, and engineers.

Seeing Stress from Space

What is the Landsat satellite program and why is it important?

National Drought Mitigation Center

USDA Estimation of Crop Production

USDA Ag Data Commons

When Drought Threatens Crops

Amid Potato Shortages, People are Worried about French Fries. Could CRISPR Help?

If you’re a french fry lover (guilty), you may have had a mild panic attack this week when news broke that a potato shortage could affect spud supplies. Unusually cold weather in the U.S. and Canada ruined some potato crops, leading to concerns that diminished supply and high demand could lead to a price spike in ‘taters — and a scarcity of french fries.

You don’t need to start stockpiling fries just yet. The New York Times walked back these tater-related fears, noting that consumers “probably shouldn’t worry so much,” and that their french fry suppliers would likely be able to keep up with demand.

This isn’t an isolated incident. With climate change making weather all the more extreme and unpredictable, it’s likely many crops — potatoes and otherwise — will be affected.

One potential solution could be gene editing technologies like CRISPR. Scientists can use these technologies to manipulate the DNA of plants to make them have higher yields and be more resilient to extreme weather conditions. Gene editing is also faster, more accurate, and cheaper than using genetically modified organisms (GMO’s).

If you think that sounds like science fiction… well, it does. But gene editing technology could also be the answer to keeping us in our favorite foods even as populations rise and ocean temperatures rise.

Scientists are already using it to shore up staple crops against the threat of climate change. Yield10, an agriculture bioscience company is developing gene edited seeds for, among other things, potatoes. Companies are also developing new strains of staples like rice and corn that are drought resistant and produce more yield even under harsh weather conditions.

Gene editing can also help non-edible foods become edible; recently scientists figured out how to tweak cotton seeds to make them safe to eat (they’re naturally poisonous).

Similar to GMO’s, gene editing foods, including those made with CRISPR, can be pretty controversial. But as climate change worsens and soil conditions deteriorate, we’ll need to harness a wide variety of agricultural technologies — like gene editing, AI, and maybe even vertical farming — if we want to keep french fries on the menu. That seems reason enough to keep an open mind towards gene editing.

Farmshelf Gets Angel Investment From Singapore’s she1K, Liberty Produce Launches UK Vertical Farming Project

Angel network she1K has syndicated an early-stage investment in Farmshelf, according to an article published today on AgFunder News. Singapore-based she1K, which is known for its global female executive leadership, did not disclose financial terms of the deal. Farmshelf is the third company to join its portfolio 

Whereas many companies in the vertical farming space right now have massive indoor facilities aiming to produce millions of heads of leafy greens, Farmshelf differentiates itself by staying focused on smaller spaces like supermarkets, offices, hotels, and restaurants. Its bookcase-sized farm grows leafy greens and herbs using a combination of custom LEDs, sensors, and software that deliver water, nutrients, and the optimal amount of light needed for each crop. The system, which can simply be plugged into a wall and connected to WiFi, is already at a number of restaurants, hotels, and other spaces, including NYC chain Tender Greens, Marriott Marquis Times Square, and the Condé Nast offices. 

The Farmshelf system is currently available to businesses in parts of Texas and California, and will be available to customers “in most major markets” in 2020.

Farmshelf isn’t the only indoor farming initiative kicking off December with big news. Across the Atlantic, agtech company Liberty Produce has finally launched its vertical farming project that looks to improve both crop yield and operational costs for vertical farming through improved, more automated tech.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, Liberty Produce has partnered with several entities for the project. While most were not disclosed, a major one is Crop Health and Protection (CHAP), a network of scientists, farmers, researchers, academics, and businesses developing new ways to use technology to improve the farming system in the UK. Work on the Liberty Produce project is being done at CHAP’s Fine Phenotyping Lab at Rothamsted Research in the UK, with experts experimenting with plants’ responses to different light intensities and studying the best LED “recipes” for crops.

“There’s lots we don’t know about growing plants in this artificial environment and we’re not giving them optimal conditions,” Liberty Produce founder Zeina Chapman told The Spoon earlier this year. “With lighting, there isn’t an option to control it in a way that maximizes plant growth. So we might be putting plants under stress.”

Liberty also wants to use more automation to make the concept of vertical farming easier for the anyone, something Farmshelf also appears to be striving for with its plug-in-and-go system.

It’s an admirable goal to strive for, especially if it can get more locally grown produce into the hands of more cafeterias, universities, local businesses, and, eventually, individual homes.

The test — and something we’ll hear more about in 2020 — will be whether the vertical farming industry can find a way to do this cost effectively. There’s plenty of hype right now around the promises of vertical farming. As to whether it can actually become an everyday reality for the everyman, the jury is still out.

Thanks to Gene Editing, Cotton (Yes, Cotton) Could Be a New Protein Staple

Odds are, you come into contact with cotton every day, in your clothes, your bedsheets, and even your coffee filters.

Soon the “Fabric of Our Lives” might be on your plates, too. Well, sort of. This month the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared a genetically engineered form of cotton, developed by Keerti Rathore, a professor of plant biotechnology at Texas A&M University, officially safe to eat. The gene editing only affects the seeds of the plant, not the fluffy stuff used to make your t-shirts, pants, and socks.

Seeds are often used as a source of protein or fat — think sunflower, pumpkin, etc. — but cotton seeds contain gossypol, a chemical that’s harmful to humans. Food companies have already developed a process to remove the chemical from pressed cottonseed oil, which is currently sold in various food products and vegetable oil mixes. However, Rathore’s process, called “RNA interference,” shuts off the gossypol gene in cotton seeds so people can safely eat them in their whole form. It also keeps the gossypol in the rest of the cotton plant, where it acts as a natural pest deterrent.

Since cotton is relatively plentiful, Rathore told Reuters that he hopes that the seeds could be an affordable, nutrient-rich source of protein when added to products like granola, breads or energy bars. Cottonseed meal (what remains after the seeds have been pressed for oil) could also be used to feed fish, pigs and other animals, all of which are also sensitive to gossypol.

However, it’ll be a while before humans (or fish) get a chance to sample these new gene-edited cotton seeds. Rathore hasn’t given an exact timeline, but he told the New Food Economy he first has to license out his technology to seed companies, which can then sell to farmers.

According to Rathore, the impact from adding cotton seeds to the food system could be significant. “There are approximately 10.8 trillion grams of protein locked up in the annual global output of cottonseed,” he told Reuters. “This is enough to meet the basic protein requirements of over 500 million people at a rate of 50 grams of protein per person per day.” Since many of the world’s cotton-producing countries, specifically in African and Asia, struggle with malnutrition, that protein could make a real difference.

The cotton seeds aren’t the first FDA-approved gene-edited food. Earlier this year biotech company Calyxt began selling a gene-edited soybean oil that doesn’t require trans fats for shelf stability. Yield10 Biosciences is developing genetically engineered corn kernels to produce greater outputs. We’ve also been eating FDA-approved genetically modified foods (GMO’s) for decades, especially corn and soy.

Like GMO’s, gene editing foods — including those made using CRISPR — carry a fair bit of controversy. However, the potential benefits are significant. The new gossypol-free cotton seeds give a glimpse into how gene editing can impact our food system. As climate change and deteriorating soil conditions make it harder to cultivate certain crops, gene editing technology could not only save some of our favorite foods — like coffee and chocolate — but could also help us open the door to entirely new protein sources. Throw in a population set to hit roughly 10 billion by 2050, and these sources could be critical to helping us feed a hungry world.

FarmWise Raises $14.5M for Autonomous Weeding Agriculture Robot

FarmWise announced today that it has raised a $14.5 million Series A round of funding for its autonomous agriculture robots. The round was led by Calibrate Ventures with participation from Wilbur Ellis, Xplorer Capital and Alumni Ventures Group. This brings the total amount raised by FarmWise to $20.2 million.

Farmwise builds self-driving robots that use a combination of computer vision and AI to identify weeds among crops and precision mechanical tools to remove them without the need for herbicides. According to the press release sent to The Spoon, FarmWise says its robots have removed weeds from more than 10 million plants. The company will use the new funding to scale up its robotics engineering and operations team and further develop its R&D efforts on “plant-level detection and actuation capabilities.”

Agricultural applications are ripe for automation. The industry is facing a labor shortage, and even when running at full employment, farm work is hard work involving long days out in the hot sun. Robots can run all day without needing a break or suffering heat stroke. To help fill in the human labor gap, there are plenty of agbots getting funding and currently making their way to market, including Augean’s Burro, Advanced Farm Technologies‘ strawberry-picking robot and Bear Flag Robotics‘ autonomous tractors.

Robots like those from FarmWise can also accelerate the move towards more organic farming. With mechanical weed removal, there’s no need for spraying herbicides and pesticides. And it’s pretty safe to assume that FarmWise isn’t just in the business of pulling weeds. If it’s, err, wise, it would build out its robots to be a more versatile platform with a broad array of applications that can be used across a farm.

Bee Vectoring Technologies Gets EPA Approval for its Bee-Delivered Fungicide

Bee Vectoring Technologies (BVT), a Toronto-based startup that uses bees to deliver pesticides, got a nice regulatory boost this week when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the company’s fungicide for use on commercial crops. This also marks the first time the EPA has approved any product for delivery by bees.

Clonostachys rosea CR-7, which is sold under the name Vectorite, is an organic fungicide that is labeled for use on strawberries, blueberries, sunflowers and almonds. It is a powder that is held in trays that sit outside commercial beehives. As we wrote last year, when bees exit the hive, the powder, which BVT says is not harmful to bees, gets on their feet. As the bees land on a plant and shake a flower to release pollen, the fungicide is dropped. This surgical type of delivery can give farmers more precise pesticide application methods than they might get with broad spraying.

I spoke with Ashish Malik, President and CEO of BVT, who explained that CR-7 is derived from a micro-organism found in soil around the world. BVT has isolated a particular strain that can colonize plant tissue quickly and helps fight of botrytis in fruit, which manifests as a fuzzy grey mold.

BVT’s tray holds the CR-7 for bees to walk on as they leave the hive.

“We have a number of studies and results from trials and every single trial we’ve done we’ve shown a positive effect, 20 – 25 percent better yields in strawberries,” Malik said. The results were even higher with blueberries, according to BVT press materials sent to The Spoon that said there was a 77 percent bump in fruit yield with CR-7 as well as a 50 percent gain in the number of marketable berries.

In addition to better yields, Malik said that there is early evidence that BVTs fungicide can help keep strawberries fresher longer, though he was insistent that more trials needed to be conducted before they made that claim official. If those early freshness results are borne out with further testing, it’s not hard to imagine CR-7 being used in conjunction with other startups like AgShift and Apeel in fighting food waste. CR-7 could prolong food freshness while AgShift helps route food to locations based on freshness, and Apeel would extend that freshness even longer. All of this is in theory, anyway.

Up until now, BVT has been in testing with university researchers as well as some farm demonstrations. With the EPA approval, BVT now has license to operate CR-7 as a biological fungicide commercially. “This gives us credibility in the eyes of US grower, but also outside the US,” said Malik.

Though BVT is small, it is already listed on the Toronto stock exchange. As the company looks to scale up production, Malik said it would raise the money to do so by issuing more common stock. With the EPA approval, the buzz on BVT might just be starting.

Cooks Venture Raises $12M to Spread Regenerative Agriculture through Heirloom Chickens

Today regenerative agriculture company Cooks Venture announced the close of a $12 million senior secured financing round provided by AMERRA Capital Management.

Founded by Matthew Wadiak, the ex-COO of meal kit company Blue Apron, Cooks Venture is an agtech company selling slow growth heirloom chickens with the lofty goal of saving the planet through regenerative agriculture. As we wrote this spring just after the company’s launch:

Chickens are just the first step for Cooks Venture, whose end goal is to show how regenerative agriculture can slow — or even stop — climate change by sequestering carbon in soil. Next up, they’ll start raising and selling cattle, pigs, and vegetables, all sustained on the same plot of land as the chickens.

For now, Cooks Venture has a farm in Arkansas where it raises its chickens and two poultry processing facilities. Their heirloom chickens cost $15 to $20 and are available through the Cooks Venture website as well as FreshDirect (in the Northeast) and Northern California meat distributor the Golden Gate Meat Company.

On the surface, Cooks Venture’s process might not seem all that unusual. Create a farm that grows crops which can be used to feed chickens, all on the same land. What’s so radical about that?

What you might not know (as this author did not) is that the vast majority of American farmland is dedicated to growing crops — often in huge quantities — that are not destined to feed humans, but to feed animals or produce fuel. In order to grow such large quantities of a single crop quickly, farmers often have to rely on agricultural companies which sell seeds that require inputs like fertilizer and herbicides. That isn’t good for us, or the planet.

Regenerative agriculture, on the other hand, looks at soil microbiology plan which crops to grow and sequester carbon in the process. Wadiak argues that it’s more economically viable than relying on seed companies for constant inputs of fertilizer, pesticide, and the like. “It’s a trifecta of wins: for farmers, for us, and for consumers,” Wadiak told me over the phone earlier this week.

So why isn’t everyone growing their food regeneratively? Corn and soy subsidies are partly to blame, but according to Wadiak, the real reason regenerative agriculture isn’t more widespread is because, well, people just aren’t doing it. At least, not at scale.

Wadiak is confident that Cooks Venture can demonstrate that regenerative agriculture is a viable option through its use of technology. The company employs heat unit mapping and data science to predict which crops will grow best in which soil.

Cooks Venture is growing quickly for company that only started a few months ago — they now have over 100 employees — but Wadiak knows that they have a long way to go. “We’re working on multi-multi-year systems,” he said, referring to the timeline for the company to install its regenerative agriculture plan.

That’s where the new funding will come in. Cooks Venture will use it to renovate and expand its 800-acre poultry processing facility to handle up to 700,000 chickens per week. It will also use its new capital to partner with agroecologists in order to develop new sustainable agriculture practices.

Advanced Farm Technologies Raises $7.5M Series A for its Strawberry Picking Robot

Advanced Farm Technologies (AFT), an agtech robotics startup, has raised a $7.5 million Series A round of funding led by Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley (“YMVSV”), the strategic business development and investment arm of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd., with participation from Kubota Corporation, Catapult Ventures, and Impact Venture Capital. This brings the total amount raised by AFT to $9.2 million.

Based in Davis, CA, AFT creates robots as a service for farmers. It has developed the T-6 robotic strawberry harvester which operates on farms in the Oxnard, Santa Maria, and Salinas-Watsonville areas of California.

Agriculture is a hot area for robotics companies and automation. In addition to the fact that farms are facing a human labor shortage, farm work is hard work. It entains repetitive, manual labor often in hot conditions. Automating some of those tasks would help save people from getting heat stroke or dehydration after being out in the fields all day. Robots can also pave the way towards more efficient farming with precision application of water and pesticides.

Despite their potential benefits, robots haven’t had the best track record when it comes to picking strawberries. Even with the aid of computer vision, ripe berries can be hard to spot. They’re also fragile, so plucking them has to be done with the right amount of robotic care.

Perhaps this is why so many companies are tackling the problem. In addition to AFT, CROO Robotics, Traptic, and Agrobot are all working on robotic strawberry harvesters.

For its part, AFT says it will use the new funds to further expand its robotic strawberry harvesting program and “innovate in other areas.” If the company can nail robotic strawberry picking, that will indeed be pretty sweet.

CropX Raises $10M for its Soil Sensor and Analytics Platform

CropX, a Tel-Aviv based soil analytics startup, announced today that it has raised $10 million in new funding (h/t Axios Pro Rata). According to the press announcement new investors include strategic partner Sumitomo Corporation Europe, Armada Investments and TaL Capital, which joined existing investors such as Finistere Ventures, Germin8 Ventures, GreenSoil Investments, Innovation Endeavors and OurCrowd. This brings the total amount raised by CropX to $22.9 million.

There are two components to the CropX product: a hardware sensor and cloud-based software. The CropX sensor is a screw-shaped device that farmers literally screw into the ground. This screw shape is actually one of the ways CropX differentiates itself in the soil analyzing space because the threads of the device give it more surface area than straight tube-shaped sensors. Placing sensors on the threads of a CropX allows water to pass through the sensor not just around it.

As water passes through these sensors, information is sent up to the cloud where CropX’s software analyzes the soil for moisture levels, temperature and electroconductivity to determine salinity levels. Results are sent to a mobile app where the farmer can better manage nutrient management and fertilizer application.

But the bigger play for CropX is data. As we wrote last year:

Sensors cost from $600 to $899 apiece and there is a $275 yearly subscription per sensor. Farmers own their own data, and anything CropX learns is anonymous and on an aggregate basis. But it’s these data insights that are the real play for CropX. [CropX CEO Tomar] Tzach wouldn’t go into specifics but said that eventually, the company will be able to “provide significant data to other industries and geographies.”

CropX is among a, well, crop of companies looking to give farmers greater insight into their dirt. Other players in the soil sensing space include Teralytic and Arable.

As part of today’s announcement, CropX also said that it has brought on John Vikupitz as its new president, where he will focus on scaling the company.