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 Châtenay-Malabry (FR - 92290), April 20, 2020 Complement of the EFITA newsletter / 926 - European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment /special Virus To unsubscribe this newsletter, please contact me directely: guy.waksman(a)laposte.net if this link Unsubscribe does not work. Please note that I changed the presentation of the links that are embedded in the name of the web service. How to receive the Afia (in French) and Efita (in English) through a RSS feed ? 
To correspond with me (GW), please use this address: guy.waksman(a)laposte.net To subscribe the efita newsletter (please ask your friends and colleagues to test this link) Efita Newsletters subscription Weekly newsletters about ICT in Agriculture in English and French Both newsletters have around 14000 subscribers. >>> Last weekly EFITA Newsletters in English (created in 1999) Efita Newsletters >>> Last weekly AFIA Newsletters in French (created 20 years ago in 1997) Afia Newsletters Around 15% of subscribers have a look on these newsletters. A rather normal rate… The archive for the last years are available on the AFIA web site. >>> Statistics about the previous issue of the efita newsletter dated April 13, 2020 >>> It is possible that some images will be censured: in this case, it is possible to see them when trying to answer to this message... Is that clear?
In a Crisis, Pessimism Is Natural but Realism Is Crucial, by Marian L. Tupy “In every age everybody knows that up to his own time, progressive improvement has been taking place; nobody seems to reckon on any improvement in the next generation. We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who say society has reached a turning point – that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason... On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?” Thomas Babington MACAULAY, British historian and statesman (1830) See humanprogress.org God, Science and COVID-19 by Gabriel Waksman The Covid-19 pandemic is a tragedy of epic proportions. As the situation appears to go from bad to worse, many, including myself, have started receiving video links, poems, and other pieces of writing, all religious in nature, from friends, neighbours or prayer groups. All these were very well intended. They saw distress and thought that… See europeanscientist.com
How we saw the future yesterday?
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Cargill and Agrocorp complete groundbreaking $12m intercontinental wheat trade on blockchain Agribusiness giants Cargill and Agrocorp have completed a groundbreaking grain deal that provides a taster of how cross-border food commodity trading could become much faster and more frictionless in the future. Tapping into Hyperledger Fabric – an open-source blockchain technology – US-based Cargill was able to complete the sale of a consignment of wheat worth $12 million to Singapore’s Agrocorp in a matter of hours, compared to the several weeks normally required for such a process. Blockchain tech could prove particularly useful for keeping supply chains open in conditions like those brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, given its ability to effectively remove many of the physical touchpoints typically associated with the foodstuffs trade. See agfundernews.com Philippines turbocharges farm-2-consumer marketplace program to soften Covid-19 blow The government of the Philippines is boosting a state-led agribusiness marketplace initiative with technology and private sector partnerships to help farmers and consumers during the Covid-19 crisis. The country’s Department of Agriculture (DA) originally launched the project alongside the Department of Interior & Local Government and state-owned enterprise Food Terminal Inc in September last year. Named ‘Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita,’ the initiative aims to link farmers, growers, and fishermen directly with Filipino consumers, in order to provide low-income households with access to cheap and fresh local produce. See agfundernews.com Grow crops like a fighter pilot The next harvest is becoming a matter of economic survival for some growers in uncertain times. With trade wars, pandemics and market plunges, farmers now more than ever need every edge they can get to make the most of the growing season. One thing they can do to up their game is to take inspiration from fighter pilots. Fighter pilots have mere seconds to make complex decisions carrying life-and-death consequences. They’re under more than just financial pressure, and they’ve developed a detailed framework to help them cope. This framework can help growers. See agfundernews.com Good old days (?????): The Harvest, 1883, by Camille Pissarro
What are farmers thinking about agtech during Covid-19? Many of the world’s leading industries are grinding to a halt as governments across the globe attempt to thwart the further spread of Covid-19. Industries that involve bringing large numbers of people together physically are bearing the brunt, including sporting events, restaurants, education, and tourism. But there are a few that have been deemed essential to everyday life, including healthcare, emergency services, food manufacturing, and farming. In uncertain times, there are a few things that are certain; farmers will soon be planting new crops in the Northern Hemisphere and harvesting in the South, livestock will continue to eat and produce offspring, and people will continue to eat. How these different activities come to bear might be different, but they cannot be canceled altogether like a conference or a college football game. See agfundernews.com China's agrifood startups raised $3.6bn in 2019 AgFunder's China AgriFood Startup Investing Report 2019 reveals that Chinese food and agriculture startups raised $3.6 billion last year, down 38% from 2018's $5.8 billion. The decrease is partly explained by the absence of outsize transactions like the previous year's, such as Meituan Dianping's $1.5 billion pre-IPO raise. However, China's slowing GDP growth rate, its ‘trade war’ with the US, and the African swine fever outbreak also likely played their part. See agfunder.com Agri-robotics for a Sustainable Farming Future With its European research facility nestled in the hills above Florence, Italy, Yanmar R&D Europe (YRE) is well placed to focus on a variety of field-based studies to bring added value to the agriculture industry – and possibly even attract a new generation of workers to the land. These include the two-year, four-million Euros ‘SMASH’ project being carried out in cooperation with 10 technology partners to develop a mobile agricultural ‘eco-system’ to monitor, analyse and manage agricultural crops. .../... See yanmar robot in Italy See yanmar.com
Calculating soil moisture from space earns VanderSat fresh funding from impact investor, by Richard Martyn-Hemphill ...But the Dutch company VanderSat has a more drastic idea, one that’s kind of out of this world. Namely, measure and map the soil’s moisture from a constellation of satellites in space using “passive microwave” technology, accompanied by a lot of complex mathematics to make sense of the data. .../.. See agfundernews.com VanderSat For Agriculture What if smarter satellite observations could lead to better irrigation, less pesticide and fertilizer use, and improved commodity trading strategies? See vandersat.com Coronavirus increases demand for remote field monitoring Remote field monitoring systems can help farmers keep an eye on their fields, while staying in quarantine, says Gottfried Pessl of Pessl Instruments. See futurefarming.com
John Deere Autotrac Vision for tractors and sprayers Autotrac Vision uses a hi-res front-mounted camera to automatically guide machinery down established crop rows. See futurefarming.com Sensoterra and NNNCo partner in soil moisture monitoring Sensoterra and NNNCo aim to bring affordable soil moisture monitoring to the Asia Pacific region. See futurefarming.com FJ Dynamics to launch LandMaster Navigation in Europe FJ Dynamics’ LandMaster Navigation System uses AI for automatically straight driving. See futurefarming.com Good old days (?????): Paysanne démêlant de la laine 1875, par Camille Pissarro
How agtech helps Chinese farmers recover from coronavirus outbreak While China is slowly recovering from the coronavirus outbreak, agtech is helping farmers to prepare for spring planting. How can agtech help prepare for spring planting? See futurefarming.com IGS builds the Intelligent Growth system, a revolutionary and totally controlled environment for agriculture Intelligent Growth is 100% Internet of Things enabled and powered by a 3-tier Artificial Intelligence back-end to deliver dramatic productivity benefits: 2-3x yield with quality and consistency, using 50% less energy and 80% less labour. See intelligentgrowthsolutions.com YieldTec robots to end labour shortages in orchards New Zealand startup YieldTec wants to introduce robots to fruit picking. See futurefarming.com Good old days (?????): Peasant Girl Laboring - Camille Pissarro
Amid strained supply chains, Singapore launches $21m grant program to boost local production, by Jack Ellis See agfundernews.com How Iowa’s startup ecosystem is supporting agtech startups? See agfundernews.com
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