Where federal funding flows, agricultural technology goes.
Words to live by, if you are an ag tech developer who is positioning his or her business to catch an emerging wave of research. In the past month the USDA has made two announcements worth your continuing engagement.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), spurred by the USDA and the nation’s land grant universities (like the University of California), this week called for a new commitment to research in agriculture and food.
This culminates a concerted effort over the past few years by ag and food researchers to restore the United States’ level of investment in pure scientific research, which leads to business products such as applied ag tech.
The announcement cites the California drought, vividly illustrating the need for ag tech support to extend natural resources like water and soil and inputs.
These are “technology challenges,” OSTP says, and the office tells us to watch in coming months for announcements and funding for “disciplines as modern, remunerative, scientific and technology-driven.”
Heeding these words, the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), awarded a $1.1 million grant to UC Davis “to develop theoretical and technological tools that will enable the design, optimization, prototyping and field-testing of consistently high-throughput, cost-effective mechanized harvesting systems for modern orchards.”
Next-gen robotics is the sweet spot here. It’s worth watching, as precision agriculture is all about all permutations of integrated technology. Especially if our researcher colleagues are designing in “cost-effective” from the get-go. Our applied tech has to pencil out or our dirt-covered customers won’t buy.
And optimization is the business opportunity of ag tech developers.
Get busy!
