Tim Oren’s funded a company that builds a GPS-guided automated tractor used, in part, by organic farmers:
Part of the plantings at American Farms are certified organic, and the GPS system was originally bought for them, exploiting the reduced till concept for weed control and making it safe to leave irrigation piping in place while tilling, due to the greater precision. If your image of organic veggies involves aging hippies working their few acre truck farm, think again. What I saw was industrialized organic farming, 40 acres of raised bed lettuce ‘garden’ at a go, plowed and planted automatically under the control of Silicon Valley gadgetry, guided by Defense Department GPS satellites.
“Reduced till” means shallow tilling, preferred by organic farmers because it doesn’t bring so many weed seeds to the surface, it isn’t so hard on your worms, it reduces topsoil erosion, and is all-around a good deal, except it requires some precision, hence the farmbot.
This is some cool shit, in other words, doing well by doing good.
That is pretty damn fascinating stuff. Helluva lot different from two sticks from the creek pounded in the ground with twine to guide the row, like I did it as a kid.