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AGRICULTURE :
AUTOMATION :
BUSINESS: CORPORATIONS: NAMED CORPORATIONS: MONSANTO:
Robots Are Growing Tons of Our Food.
Here's the Creepy Part.
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Robots Are Growing Tons of Our Food.
It's Not What You Think.
TOM PHILPOTT
Armando Veve
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016 ISSUE
Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/
2016/09/monsanto-farming-precision-agriculture
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A shorter URL for the above link:
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http://tinyurl.com/jj786gs
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You don't see self-driving cars taking over American cities yet, but
robotic tractors already roar through our corn and soybean farms, helping
to plant and spray crops. They also gather huge troves of data, measuring
moisture levels in the soil and tracking unruly weeds. Combine that with
customized weather forecasts and satellite imagery, and farmers can now
make complex decisions like when to harvestwithout ever stepping outside.
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These tools are part of a new trend, known as "precision agriculture,"
that is transforming how we grow crops. Using everything from sensors on
combines to drones equipped with infrared cameras that monitor plant
health, service providersranging from Monsanto and DuPont to startupstake
data from the fields, upload it to the cloud, crunch it, and provide
farmers with advice on how to run their operations.
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Precision agriculture has been around since the '90s, but it really took
off when GPS technology became cheap and ubiquitous in the mid-2000s. It
got another major boost in 2013, when Monsanto, a top producer of
genetically modified seeds and pesticides, bought a Silicon Valley weather
prediction startup called the Climate Corporation for $930 million.
Monsanto now claims its digital-ag platform is used on nearly 45 percent
of US corn and soybean acres. Even as seed and pesticide sales stagnate
across the industry, revenue from farm data services reached $2.76 billion
in 2015, and one market research firm estimates it'll grow to $4.8 billion
by 2020.
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Last year, Monsanto cut a deal with John Deere, owner of most of the US
tractor market. Data pulled from Deere tractors will feed the Climate
Corp.'s data-crunching services. As a result of these collaborations,
Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant recently told investors, Monsanto aims to become
the "integrating hub" for seeds, traits, and pesticides, delivering "data
insights" straight to farmers.
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And now, of course, Monsanto is in the process of being bought by German
chemical giant Bayer, itself a large purveyor of pesticides and (to a
lesser extent) seeds. If the Monsanto-Bayer deal passes regulatory muster
in the United States and the European Union, the combined company will own
a quarter of the globe's seed and pesticide markets. In the run-up to the
deal, Bayer cited Monsanto's heft in the data market as one of its main
motivations for subsuming its smaller US rival.
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Meanwhile, Bayer and Monsanto's handful of competitors have jumped in. Dow
and DuPont, also in the process of combining into one massive
seed-and-agrichemical giant, have both launched precision-ag arms.
Syngenta offers AgriEdge Excelsior, a "whole farm programacross digital
platforms." In short, these globe-spanning companies are vying to become
one-stop farm shops, selling seeds (often genetically modified),
pesticides, data analysis, and ultimately advice on how to knit it all
together.
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The complete article may be read at the URL above.
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Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@xxxxxxxxxx
http://workface.com/e/daviddillard
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