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Is soil an essential element of organic farming? Or can a crop grown in a soil-free container still be considered organic? Since the launch of the National Organic Program in 2000, hydroponic, aeroponic, and aquaponic crop systems have been eligible to use the coveted USDA Organic seal on their products, so long as their operations comply with all other USDA organic regulations. But some organic farmers say healthy soil is the non-negotiable foundation of organic methods, and for years they have objected to the inclusion of hydroponics in organic certification. In recent months, the discussion over organic hydroponics has become...

Swarms of drones buzz overhead, while robotic vehicles crawl across the landscape. Orbiting satellites snap high-resolution images of the scene far below. Not one human being can be seen in the pre-dawn glow spreading across the land. This isn’t some post-apocalyptic vision of the future à la The Terminator. This is a snapshot of the farm of the future. Every phase of the operation—from seed to harvest—may someday be automated, without the need to ever get one’s fingernails dirty. In fact, it’s science fiction already being engineered into reality. Today, robots empowered with artificial intelligence can zap weeds with preternatural...

Agriculture is big business in Indiana. The US Census Bureau places the Hoosier State firmly in the top ten farming states with 11.2 billion dollars in annual sales. Farmers, faced with a labor shortage and declining profit, are quickly adopting robotic technology to ensure their family businesses stay afloat. These farms, like Superior Dairy in Garrett, are not your father’s farms. Not Your Father’s Farm Step onto the lot of Superior Dairy in Garrett, and the smell hits you right away. It’s not foul, not like a hog farm. Instead, it’s earthy, with notes of hay, mud and hints of...

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has hit a new high, the UN said Monday, warning that drastic action is needed to achieve targets set by the Paris climate agreement. “Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surged at a record-breaking speed in 2016 to the highest level in 800,000 years,” the World Meteorological Organization said. “Globally averaged concentrations of CO2 reached 403.3 parts per million in 2016, up from 400.00 ppm in 2015 because of a combination of human activities and a strong El Niño event,” it said. The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, the UN weather agency’s...

The ups and downs of country living can be challenging and entertaining. You can get down and dirty, mucking around with chicken poop cleanup and other related fun. Or, you can be a country squire, enjoy the shelled emissions of said chickens without actual direct contact. This writer shuns interaction with the chickens, proclaiming herself a country squire. What she did not count on, but should have, was her filter-free, sassy daughter’s comment. “Mother, a country squire is a male landowner or a gentleman who escorts a woman.” “Well then, I’m the lady of the manor,” her mother huffed. “In...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- A company that uses fish waste to grow organic baby lettuce and arugula plans to create 21 new jobs in Northern Virginia. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's office announced Friday that Kappa Farms will invest $865,000 to open a new "aquaponics" operation in Loudoun County....

Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/06/2017 -- The global agriculture robots market features a widely diverse competitive landscape characterized by region-wise dominance of prominent players, notes Transparency Market Research (TMR). For instance, the agriculture robots market in North America was dominated Harvest Automation, Inc., Clearpath Robotics, and PrecisionHawk, Inc., in 2015, while in the same year, Naio Technologies and SenseFly SA led the Europe market. In addition, Shibuya Seiki was one of the leading players in the Asia Pacific market for agriculture robots in 2015. Furthermore, driven by abundant lucrative avenues, the market is witnessing a constant influx of emerging...

PATH TO PROGRESS   In a patch of barren land that hasn't yielded crops for centuries, engineers from the Sahara Forest Project say they're designing a sustainable farm that uses solar power to desalinate seawater for crops, then uses the runoff to fend off desertification. AQABA, JORDAN—Hope in Jordan is taking the form of a cucumber in the desert. It is not a mirage. Some say it is the future. In the arid southern desert of Wadi Araba, where scorching temperatures and dust devils leave scant signs of life, a team of environmental engineers is working on a solution for...

A farm in Cambodia has reportedly been creating massive mutant pigs with abnormally oversized muscles. ... In 2015, an experiment conducted by researchers from South Korea and China demonstrated that the concept did not work in practice because most of the animals didn't survive and even among those that did, most suffered from health problems and were of no commercial value. "Hulk-like pigs are the stuff of nightmares, not meals, and those who are genetically engineered are also likely to be born with painful health issues," PETA wrote

LONDON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- In what has been described Friday as a world first, a farm field in Britain has been planted and harvested completely by autonomous vehicles and drones without any farmhands in sight. The hands-free crop farming was delivered in joint project by Harper Adams University in Shropshire and Yorkshire-based Precision Decisions, in an initiative partly-funded by the government agency, Innovate UK. The renowned agricultural university and Precision Decisions announced Friday the successful completion of "Hands Free Hectare", a project to plant, tend and harvest a crop using only autonomous vehicles and drones. A spokesman for Innovate...

Four years ago, one of China’s largest agricultural importers sent representatives to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., hoping that meetings with elite party officials might yield business opportunities. The company, the Dandong Port Group, was particularly focused on the governors in attendance, according to an interview with Dandong’s general counsel broadcast by Chinese state television. But now, the company’s widening influence is coming under scrutiny by federal prosecutors, who are examining the relationship between Dandong’s wealthy and connected chairman, Wang Wenliang, and Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a Democrat who was elected in 2013. A federal law enforcement...

HIXTON, Wis. (WKBT) - Nestled in the small town of Hixton, Wisconsin, sits a one-of-a-kind farm. Superior Fresh is the first of its kind indoor Atlantic Salmon farm in the country and it's one of the largest aquaponics facilities in the world. The facility combines aquaculture and hydroponics, where waste from fish will be used to supply nutrients for plants grown in water. The 720-acre-farm uses recirculating technologies that collect water and reuse it to grow plants. That water is collected from the aquaculture systems which carry 120,000 pounds of Atlantic salmon. Nutrient-rich water from the fish is then used...

A dairy farmer, Jean-Pierre Le Guelvout, once kept 66 cows at a thriving estate in southern Brittany. But falling milk prices, accumulating debts, depression and worries about his heath in middle age became too much to bear. Just 46, Mr. Le Guelvout shot himself in the heart in a grove behind his house one cold December day last year. “It was a place that he loved, near the fields that he loved,” explained his sister Marie, who said she was “very close” to him but did not see his suicide coming. The death of Ms. Le Guelvout’s brother was part...

If you consider buying a farm or you already have some field and want to use it for this purpose, you would need to know about 10 easiest goat breeds to raise. First of all, you need to know why to choose goats instead of cows, pigs, or sheep? They give the same product as these three breeds, but products of cows, pigs, and sheep are more in demand. Well, that is true, but, when you look at the numbers, you will see that raising goats is more profitable and better in every matter than keeping these three. First of...

The cannabis industry could have a notable economic impact, if the U.S. federal government stays out of the way. Investors are always on the lookout for fast-growing industries, which means there's no surprise why marijuana stocks have been such strong performers over the past year. Far more pot stocks than not with a market cap of at least $200 million have doubled or tripled in value over the past year. Optimistic growth figures for the industry are seemingly everywhere. Aside from the fact that a record number of Americans surveyed by Gallup and CBS News want to see cannabis legalized...

A new bill introduced in New York City Council Thursday addresses the need for an urban agriculture plan that doesn’t fall through the cracks of the city’s zoning and building regulations, the Wall Street Journal reports. The bill, introduced by Councilman Rafael Espinal and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and assigned to the Land Use Committee, also raises the possibility of an office of urban agriculture. If a New York City farm bill seems surprising, you may also be surprised to know that NYC has the country’s largest urban agriculture system, including community gardens, rooftop farms and greenhouses. The city’s...

Driscoll’s is so secretive about its robotic strawberry picker it won’t let photographers within telephoto range of it. But if you do get a peek, you won’t see anything humanoid or space-aged. AgroBot is still more John Deere than C-3PO — a boxy contraption moving in fits and starts, with its computer-driven sensors, graspers and cutters missing 1 in 3 berries.

A former Pepsi factory that sat vacant for a decade is being reincarnated as an indoor marijuana grow — one of the largest in the pot-friendly state of Colorado. Doyen Elements, a holding company that leases real estate properties out to legal cannabis companies, bought an old bottling plant in Pueblo County. Upon completion in 2019, the facility could potentially produce up to 70,000 pounds of marijuana flower a year. According to a recent report in Forbes, the company is one of a growing number of real estate investment firms that are making money in legal weed without actually touching...

In a speech otherwise laden with praise for President Trump, Rep. Roger Marshall broke ranks on immigration, questioning the feasibility of a mammoth border wall and saying mass deportation would wreck Kansas’ economy. Marshall represents Kansas’ 1st District, a sprawling, mostly rural and agrarian district that covers the western two-thirds of the state. He said the U.S. needs to revise its immigration policies and document those who come to the United States to work in the farms and feedlots....

A farmer faces trial in federal court this summer and a $2.8 million fine for failing to get a permit to plow his field and plant wheat in Tehama County. A lawyer for Duarte Nursery said the case is important because it could set a precedent requiring other farmers to obtain costly, time-consuming permits just to plow their fields.