Tell Congress to support real-time crop disease alerts in the Farm Bill!

U.S. startup InnerPlant has successfully developed world-first tech providing real-time crop disease alerts. They’ve created “sensor plant” soybeans genetically engineered to fluoresce with a sensor-detectable optical signal when they’re distressed, essentially “glowing when they’re sick” in a way that can be picked up by sensors on tractors or multispectral satellite imagery looking at fields from space.

In recent tests, their CropVoice sensor network picked up fungal infections from signals in soybean plots in South Dakota and Nebraska, and sent early alerts to the farmers. This allowed early, targeted fungicide spraying to stop the spread, reducing pesticide use and raising crop yields!

“This detection is the first time in the 10,000-year history of agriculture that an infection was detected in real-time and farmers notified of the threat…

The value of data that confirms an infection weeks before symptoms are visible in the field fundamentally changes how farmers manage disease and is key to driving the commercial demand we’re seeing to expand the reach of the CropVoice network.”

— Shely Aronov, CEO and co-founder of InnerPlant.

Real-time crop alert technology has extraordinary potential to safeguard abundant yields in an increasingly chaotic world. Congress is still considering the next Farm Bill, a huge investment in American agriculture (the U.S. spends an average of $648 billion per year on Farm Bill programs) that’s up for renewal for the first time since 2018. The just-getting-started field of real-time crop alert technology is a relatively new invention and not really on the political radar screen yet. That means there’s a really great opportunity here for Congress to use the Farm Bill to help promote its deployment across America with supportive tax and regulatory incentives!

Tell Congress to support real-time crop disease alerts in the Farm Bill!