Agriculture

Four crucial resources that may run out in your lifetime

By Loz Blain

06:14 August 27, 2009 PDT

We're living in lucky times. Living standards - in the Western world, at least - are the highest in history. It's an era of relative peace and plenty that would amaze our ancestors. But it's not going to continue forever; we're already stretching many of our natural resources to their limits, and the world's population will jump from 6.5 billion to around 9 billion over the next 50 years. Get ready for a painful correction - here are four interconnected resources that are headed for a catastrophic squeeze within our lifetime. Read More

Gizcast #9: can Vertical Farming solve the impending global food crisis?

By Loz Blain

23:57 August 4, 2009 PDT

In this week's Gizcast, we're privileged to be joined by Dr. Dickson Despommier of New York City, who is perhaps the world's leading expert on Vertical Farming, a topic we've covered several times in the past few years. Dr. Despommier speaks with Loz Blain about the social, economic and environmental issues we'll have to face as the Earth's population jumps to 9 billion in the next 40-50 years. If we keep farming the way we are now, we're simply going to run out of land to feed ourselves - so the solution seems clear: we need to start bringing food production and agriculture into the high-rise age. The farms of the future, it seems, will be skyscrapers. Geoffrey Baird also joins us for a weekly roundup of top stories. Read More

Protecting world food supplies with salt-tolerant crops

By Michael Mulcahy

20:59 July 16, 2009 PDT

Salt might be great with popcorn and peanuts, but it’s not so good with soil. The U.N. estimates that the world loses at least three hectares of arable land every minute because of soil salinity. Most crops simply can’t cope with too much salt. Which is why a breakthrough by a team at the University of Adelaide in Australia could have a profound effect on the food supplies of our future: they’ve found a way to genetically modify plants to become more salt tolerant. Read More

The Dragonfly: vertical farming vision for New York's skyline

By Paul Lester

04:17 July 16, 2009 PDT

Building another skyscraper in the middle of New York may not seem like an environmentally-sound project. That is of course, unless said skyscraper is capable of providing a sprawling urban populous with self-sustaining production of food, reuse of natural resources and biodegradeable waste. Enter The Dragonfly, a dazzling, ethereal design from Vincent Callebaut Architectures which underlines the future potential of vertical farming. Read More

Green-thumbed robots: the future of sustainable precision agriculture?

By Anne Hanrahan

19:10 March 26, 2009 PDT

March 26, 2009 When consuming your five a day of fruit and vegetables, have you ever stopped to consider the back breaking labor and significant resources involved in their production? According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratories (CSAIL), the robotic, computerized answer to minimizing these factors could be just around the corner. Students at the laboratory have undertaken a project that utilizes robots to take the thinking and manual labor out of producing specialty crops such as fruit and vegetables. Read More

You're a lucky cow Wilhelmina!

By Jude Garvey

18:48 March 31, 2008 PDT

It helps to have friends in high places, even when you’ve got four legs, as a Kansas dairy cow named Wilhelmina recently found out. The 8-year-old Jersey cow ruptured the cruciate ligament in her right knee in a breeding injury but thanks to her owner, she was about to receive a knee reconstruction. Dr. Anderson, professor and head of agricultural practices at Kansas State College of Veterinary Medicine replaced the cow’s cruciate ligament using synthetic material called monofilament nylon and dubbed the "Wildcat Power Cord". Read More

RoboTrac: pre-programmable, semi-autonomous tractor concept

By Noel McKeegan

17:55 February 13, 2008 PST

February 14, 2008 Designed to perform a range of pre-programmed agricultural tasks in vineyards, coffee farms, orchards and nurseries, this futuristic driver-less tractor concept aims to boost efficiency, minimize crop damage and remove humans for hazardous environments using GPS and Internet to track its location. The Valtra RoboTrac from 25 year old Estonian industrial designer Hannes Seeberg - whose portfolio also includes an intriguing Skylift self-propelled boarding aircraft boarding system - combines an 85 hp engine diesel engine and rear-wheel steering in either a two or four wheel drive configuration with the remotely programmable computerized navigation system to enable anything from tilling and plowing to planting and spraying. Read More

eKo Pro Series wireless crop monitoring system

By Emily Clark

21:33 February 11, 2008 PST

February 12, 2008 Wireless sensor specialist Crossbow Technology has announced the forthcoming release of a new precision agricultural monitoring system that uses a network of solar-powered sensors to deliver critical real-time data on crop health via an Internet browser. Read More

California winery to convert to 100% solar power

By Darren Quick

21:50 September 17, 2007 PDT

September 18, 2007 The EOS Estate Winery has announced a $3.8 million plan to convert its California Central Coast winery entirely to solar power. To be completed by April, the project will include the installation of more than two acres of ground-mounted tracking solar arrays that will provide all the electrical power needs for the winery and tasting room, while additional roof-mounted solar arrays will provide all the hot water needs. The system will be installed by SunTechnics and will contain 3,084 photovoltaic modules totalling 540 kWp and 60 solar hot water collectors. Read More

Virtual-livestock fence: replacing wire with wire-less

By Noel McKeegan

June 25, 2007 Building and maintaining fences for controlling livestock places a huge financial burden on agricultural producers worldwide, but is there really any need for all those posts and wires? This is the question posed by the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO) which has come up with a virtual fencing solution applicable to cattle and sheep farming. Using a GPS system to define fence boundaries and a specially designed collar that alerts the animal to the fact that it has reached the “fence”, a prototype of the system has now been successfully demonstrated on a herd of cattle. Read More

Tiny but mighty - the Kubota RTV1100 luxury mini-utility

By Loz Blain

June 21, 2007 Sitting somewhere between a golf cart, an ATV and a tiny utility, Kubota's RTV1100 is a curious-looking vehicle. But this fun little diesel-powered 1123cc getabout delivers a new level of quiet, air-conditioned comfort, hard-working, all-terrain performance and roll-cage safety. These and other practical innovations should combine to make it a very popular vehicle for those who work on large, spread-out properties. Read More

Skimmed milk and spreadable butter - straight from the cow

By Loz Blain

May 28, 2007 Genetically selecting for superior produce has been a staple of farming for hundreds of years. The dairy industry is now looking at how it can selectively breed dairy cows to bring their output closer to the way consumers are choosing to use it. In particular, they're having good results identifying cows that can produce tasty low-fat 'skim' milk - which accounts for 75% of milk sold in some countries. What's more, they've also found a cow whose butter is spreadable right out of the fridge. Her name? Marge. Read More