Reading Time: 4 minutes Ask any rancher or other forage producer — insuring pasture land can be a major pain in the neck. Because of the limitations of current assessment tools, in the event of a wreck producers can be paid nothing or an amount that does not reflect actual loss. Instead, payments are made on an area-wide basis […] Read more
It came from outer space — better pasture insurance, that is
Using a new generation of satellites to measure grass production promises to be a game changer for pasture insurance
Rover will wander no more thanks to GPS technology
Reading Time: 3 minutes Keeping a dog within the confines of your own farm isn’t always easy — but technology is changing that. Rodney and Tanya Hollman, who raise purebred Gelbvieh cattle near Innisfail, recently put an “invisible fence” around their property to keep their nine-month-old Kangal-cross dog Marleigh from wandering. The couple chose the Invisible Fence Brand from […] Read more
Precision ag firm AgJunction plans post-merger job cuts
Precision agriculture equipment and software firm AgJunction is set to cut down its workforce in the wake of its merger with a U.S. competitor. AgJunction, which in 2013 relocated its head office from Calgary to Kansas and shut its Calgary manufacturing plant, announced Wednesday it will reduce its total workforce by about 20 per cent […] Read more
Trimble to buy consulting firm Agri-Trend
GPS and precision farming firm Trimble is set to buy the Canadian operator of North America’s largest network of independent agricultural consultants. Publicly traded, U.S.-based Trimble, which specializes in GPS and other location services, including the collection and management of on-farm data and services for precision farming, announced Tuesday it will buy Red Deer-based, privately-held […] Read more
GPS firm buys sprayer boom control maker NORAC
Saskatoon tech firm NORAC Systems, best known today for its automated boom height control systems for field sprayers, is set to become part of a major U.S. GPS systems firm. California-based Topcon Positioning Group announced Wednesday it will buy NORAC for an undisclosed sum, as the latest of Topcon’s recent plays in the precision ag […] Read more
Drones earning their keep on the farm
Farmers like Brandon Gibb are making profitable use of their cheap and easy-to-use unmanned aerial vehicles
Reading Time: 3 minutes From counting plants per square foot to measuring grain loss behind the combine, farmers spend a lot of time close to the ground. Sometimes, however, the best farm decisions are aided by a perspective from higher up. Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in agriculture are making headlines, and for a couple of thousand dollars […] Read more
Nailing down the value of precision agriculture
The potential for geo-referenced yield maps and variable rate is huge, but how it works in the field is key
Reading Time: 2 minutes People have been talking about precision agriculture as the next big thing in farming for more than two decades. Of course, back then, GPS wasn’t as commonplace. Today, almost all smartphones have built-in GPS and the things that you can do with the right “app” are pretty amazing. You can geo-tag your pictures (which means […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
