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More farms are turning to automation amid labor shortages

Jeremy Ford hates wasting water. As a mist of rain sprinkled the fields around him in Homestead, Florida, Ford bemoaned how expensive it had been running a fossil fuel-powered irrigation system on his 5-acre farm — and how bad it was for the planet.   Earlier this month, Ford installed an automated underground system that uses a […]

Earlier this month, Ford installed an automated underground system that uses a solar-powered pump to periodically saturate the roots of his crops, saving “thousands of gallons of water,” he estimated. Dealing with weather issues like drought has always been a fact of life for him, but climate change has brought new challenges as temperatures regularly hit triple digits and blankets of smoke ruin entire vineyards. The toll of climate change compounded by labor challenges inspired him to combine his farming experience with his Silicon Valley engineering and startup background to found AgTonomy in 2021.

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