This article is the second installment of our ongoing security series.

Having all your important tasks and stats held in a service provider’s cloud storage is now normal. As we covered in our first data security post, this means good data security hygiene is a collective effort, led by managers that organize team members’ tool access mindfully. Software as a Service, or SaaS, has reframed software as a licensed subscription that is accessible online rather than relying on local storage of the tools and user data. Organized by user permissions, access to information and its controls can be precisely managed.

This article is an update on our Emerging Ag-Tech series focused on solar energy technology. We include an agrovoltaic overview and new agrovoltaic installations and technology examples. We have also included a spotlight on new solar-powered farm vehicles.

Research shows that female growers are on the rise.  The share of U.S. farms operated by women nearly tripled over the past three decades, according to a study by the USDA’s Economic Research Service, which analyzed gender roles in the Census of Agriculture from 1978 to 2007.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported in its 2019-2028 Agricultural Outlook that strong growth opportunities are anticipated in high value fruit and vegetable crops throughout Latin America and the Caribbean within the decade. As demand for fresh produce from these regions increases, so does the need for refined data insight tools for growers and distributors alike. The Croptracker team is excited to facilitate enhanced efficiency and regulatory compliance to the South American fruit and vegetable market – particularly through our Harvest Quality Vision system that produces pre-sorting harvest insights without the huge, costly packline.

Harvest is wrapped. The bins are counted, the last spray record is (hopefully) written down somewhere, and audit season is open. Between now and the end of the year, GAP auditors, buyers, and your accountant will all ask the same question: can you show me the records?

If the answer means digging through notebooks, whiteboard photos, and a spreadsheet someone's nephew built in 2019, you're not alone — but you're also paying for it in audit prep hours, wage-law exposure, and traceability risk. This article covers what farm record keeping software actually does, which records a specialty crop operation needs to keep, and how to choose a system that fits the way you farm.

With spring on the horizon, we've been inspired to look ahead to the future.  In today's blog post, we take a look at four consumer food trends that will undoubtedly have a big impact on the horticulture industry, and discuss how Croptracker can help growers make the most of them.

Managing costs is always at the forefront of any operation, and at Croptracker we believe that you can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Autonomous tractors, robot weeding, even smart sorting machines and pack lines are all examples of advanced agtech innovations that have been widely accepted in the industry. But when it comes to transforming produce into the actual food we eat, there has been a hesitancy to adopt the same autonomous technologies.

The size of fruit and vegetable growing operations in the U.S. is steadily increasing, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.  The midpoint acreage (half of farms are below the midpoint acreage and half the farms are above it) for fruit, nut and berry operations increased in 19 of 20 crops between 1987 and 20 12.  During the 25-year period, all fruit operations barring lemon farms (which declined by 16%) grew in size.  

Commonly used terminology for the categories of fresh food we enjoy – fruits and vegetables – are often misnomers. From a culinary terminology standpoint, fruits are sweet and vegetables are not. Though it may vary depending on one’s background and region, generally the highlight of the public’s classification knowledge regarding what is a fruit and what is a vegetable is the fun fact of “Did you know that tomatoes are actually a fruit?!”

Agricultural damage from this month's Hurricane Michael is predicted to top $1.3 billion, with Florida and Georgia bearing the brunt of the losses.  Just a month ago, Hurricane Florence caused an estimated $1.1 billion in damage in North Carolina and an estimated $125 million in South Carolina.

While the dollar figures alone are tragic, there is also the unquantifiable human impact.  2017's Hurricane Irma - which caused $2.5 billion in damage to Florida's agriculture industry - caused several citrus and tomato growers to shut down operations.  Among them was one of the state's oldest tomato-growing families, Big Red Tomato.  Naturally, as this year's vicious Atlantic Hurricane Season continues to rage, there are concerns that 2018's growing season may be the last for more growers.

Social media has revolutionized how people search for and access information.  It has also become one of the most powerful (and cheapest) of marketing channels.  Today we take the 3 most popular social media platforms - Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram - and look at how you can build thriving social media pages that drive buzz and traffic to your farm, without taking up too much of your valuable time.

The year is quickly coming to a close, and we at Croptracker want to take a moment to thank all our incredible growers for another successful season. We deeply appreciate your partnership and dedication to the agricultural community. We wish you and your families a safe, restful, and joyful holiday season!

Harvest is likely the single largest expense on your specialty crop operation. Labor accounts for 40 to 60 percent of total production costs, depending on your crop and region. When that much money and effort rides on every bin, how you record the harvest determines your inventory accuracy, traceability, labor costs, and compliance readiness through the rest of the year.

Herbicide resistance occurs when, as the same herbicide or herbicide groups are applied each year, weeds and undesirable plants begin to adapt and develop a resistance to the herbicide. This development of resistance is an example of a fast paced evolutionary change through natural selection. As the same herbicide is applied year after year, resistant plants are naturally selected and survive to the next year. The resistant weeds will spread (as weeds do) and eventually herbicide resistant plants dominate the whole population. A weed population is defined as resistant when a herbicide loses effectiveness. While there is no explicit standard, a 20% survival rate after application is often used. Herbicide resistance is considered permanent in weeds and their subsequent offspring.

The rich history of apple cultivation has led to over 7,500 different varieties in existence. Commercial production pressures limit the scope of what types can be effectively produced for large markets: size conformity, taste profile, storage life, and so on. Each variety changes the playbook for thinning, harvest timing, and storage, so successful commercial orchards track their blocks closely — many run that day-to-day detail in orchard management software.  But rarer, stand-out cultivars are still maintained and celebrated for their unique delight, history, revival from near-extinction, or the possibility of becoming the Next Big Apple.

From the Green Revolution to present, agricultural innovations have allowed for the rapid evolution of food production internationally. Along with innovation comes new terminology to articulate what’s taking place along the way. There’s precision agriculture, which has denoted the last few decades of tech’s integrations with farming. And then there’s more recent phrases like smart farming and digital farming. How do these terms fit together, and which apply to your operation practices?

As supply shortages in grocery stores have become the norm over the past few weeks, questions about food security and sovereignty are changing how we think about our food. In highly urbanized areas, the disconnect between consumers and their food supply is vast, and the increasing geographical divide between cities and the farms that feed them mean that our food has to travel from further and further away to reach our store shelves. Pitfalls of traditional farming practices are becoming more evident as the COVID-19 crisis puts pressure on our supply chain. In some areas, urban farms and indoor growing facilities may be the solution.

If it’s not disease, and it’s not insects - it’s birds that are the menace attempting to harvest your crop prematurely. Mitigating crop damage done by pests is a delicate matter, as maintaining healthy biodiversity and avoiding undue harm to regional species is a universal responsibility. How can growers successfully deal with bird related impacts to their livelihood, while not striking a heavy blow to species populations? Bird Control Group (BCG) is a company focused on achieving that balance, offering growers tech solutions to crop protection that uphold that stewardship. Providing award-winning, innovative products to keep birds at a distance from commercial activities, one of its primary offerings is laser scarecrow technology that harmlessly deters birds from the area.

How does a farm operation make the leap from one data management system to another? It might be best to change the current approach, but for some stakeholders, it’s not something to proceed with any time soon. So what might help everyone get on the same page about new tools?