Agricultural innovation is a fashionable buzzword one frequently encounters these days, as though it is something novel. But humanity has been innovating in this sector for thousands of years, from the ox-drawn plow and irrigation canals to plant breeding and fertilizer. Great advances have taken place, and agriculture has evolved more rapidly in the past 150 years, as have all industries. We now marvel at advances like satellite crop monitoring, driverless combine harvesters, artificially intelligent fertigation systems, gene-edited crops and hi-tech greenhouses.
The Legacy of the Incandescent Lightbulb.
This article is part of a series where HVA would like to recognize some of the pioneers who helped spur these advances as many trailblazing innovators have been forgotten along the way. One of the biggest yet possibly least recognized
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Innovators in Irrigation
Water is a critical input for agricultural production seeing as crops need water for transpiration and evaporation. Irrigated agriculture represents 20% of the total cultivated land contributes 40% of all food produced, so it is twice as productive per unit
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The Impact of the Turing Machine on AI and Agriculture
Agriculture is generally associated with tractors and fertilizers, not digital devices and IT. However, agriculture is currently the industry that is more reliant on digital technologies and pouring billions into developing AI solutions than any other. Self-driving tractors have been
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Innovators in Plant Breeding, from Mendel to CRISPR.
Plant breeding has been around for more than 10,000 years and grafting was pioneered by farmers in China 4,000 years ago and has been a well-established practice all over the world for centuries. The science of crossbreeding took a big
