Word: farmerly
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...turning the combine around at the end of each row and the occasional moment when he has to brave the autumn chill to yank clogged ears out of the 30-ft. header, Mitchell's work in his cab more closely resembles a corporate employee's than that of a farmer. In fact, Mitchell calls his combine his "office on wheels...
...this the future of American agriculture? This 2,500-acre centennial family farm in Geneseo Township, Iowa, is a hotbed of previously unmeshed technologies that have agricultural experts buzzing and farmers considering what might be. "Clay Mitchell is probably the most progressive farmer I've ever met," says Tony Grift, assistant professor in the agricultural and biological engineering department at the University of Illinois. While researchers have been studying for years how technologies such as wireless networks and the global-positioning system (GPS) could be suited to farm work, Grift says Mitchell, 31, is one of the first independent farmers...
With a Harvard degree in biomedical engineering, Mitchell is no average farmer. After graduating in 1999, he worked and traveled for a year. He then took the unusual step of returning to the family farm where his father and great-uncle still work in the corn and soybean fields and his mom handles the bookkeeping. In the face of soaring costs and fluctuating crop prices, family farms nationwide have faced increasing difficulty, and many have shut down. Since his return, Mitchell has morphed his old farm into a technological experiment--making the farm economically stronger and environmentally sound. "The technology...
Unfortunately, for many farmers, such technologies are still out of reach financially. Typical costs for GPS and wireless network systems can run into the tens of thousands. As the seasons pass, however, the results may more than make up for the initial costs. "When Clay first started with the autopilot, the economics didn't seem feasible," says Doug Hefty, a farmer neighbor of the Mitchells'. "But as time went on, I had the opportunity to see what the yield did on his corn hybrids. He surpassed me by leaps and bounds--it's embarrassing. He's using less fertilizer...
...microscope. BioRyx picks up different substances and tells them where to go. The technology today is used for everything from analyzing blood to separating the sperm cells in bull semen that produce bulls from those that make cows (which might not seem important unless you're a dairy farmer who needs a supply of milk- and cheese-producing females...