Genetically Modified Crops: Overall Positive

GloFish fluorescent fish. Genetically modified. Danio rerio. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Going through the early versions of a computer operating system would generate less controversy than the early versions of genetically modified food, but if done right, I think GMOs will ultimately prevail for the larger good. But it is not enough to get the final product right. We also have to make the product right and participatory. People have a right to know what's going on.

Genetic modification is what happens all the time in nature. That is what the theory of evolution is based upon. Human intervention can not be all that evil.

Genetically modified crops: Field research

the largest review yet conducted of the crops’ effects on farming. It concludes that these have been overwhelmingly positive....... all examinations of the agronomic and economic impacts of GM crops published in English between 1995 and March 2014 ..... Commercial genetic modification for crops comes in two forms. One makes them resistant to insect pests. The other confers tolerance to glyphosate, enabling farmers to spray their fields with this herbicide and kill off all the other plants (ie, the weeds) in them. ..... With both forms of modification, however, the yield rise was so great (9% above non-GM crops for herbicide tolerance and 25% above for insect resistance) that farmers who adopted GM crops made 69% higher profits than those who did not. ...... GM crops do even better in poor countries than in rich ones. Farmers in developing nations who use the technology achieve yields 14 percentage points above those of GM farmers in the rich world. Pests and weeds are a bigger problem in poor countries, so GM confers bigger benefits. .... who pays for a study does not seem to influence its results.

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Agricultural Drones

Manufacturing need not fear information technology. This is solid proof. I mean, if agriculture can do it. I think this is cowboy technology. Sheep farmers in Australia could put this to good use.



Agricultural Drones

Easy-to-use ­agricultural drones equipped with ­cameras, for less than $1,000. ..... using sensors and robotics to bring big data to precision agriculture. ..... a low-cost aerial camera platform ..... This low-altitude view (from a few meters above the plants to around 120 meters, which is the regulatory ceiling in the United States for unmanned aircraft operating without special clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration) gives a perspective that farmers have rarely had before. Compared with satellite imagery, it’s much cheaper and offers higher resolution. Because it’s taken under the clouds, it’s unobstructed ...... due largely to remarkable advances in technology: tiny MEMS sensors (accelerometers, gyros, magnetometers, and often pressure sensors), small GPS modules, incredibly powerful processors, and a range of digital radios. ..... Drones can provide farmers with three types of detailed views. First, seeing a crop from the air can reveal patterns that expose everything from irrigation problems to soil variation and even pest and fungal infestations that aren’t apparent at eye level. Second, airborne cameras can take multispectral images, capturing data from the infrared as well as the visual spectrum, which can be combined to create a view of the crop that highlights differences between healthy and distressed plants in a way that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Finally, a drone can survey a crop every week, every day, or even every hour. Combined to create a time-series animation, that imagery can show changes in the crop, revealing trouble spots or opportunities for better crop management. ......... a trend toward increasingly data-driven agriculture. ..... We expect 9.6 billion people to call Earth home by 2050. All of them need to be fed. ...... More and better data can reduce water use and lower the chemical load in our environment and our food. Seen this way, what started as a military technology may end up better known as a green-tech tool, and our kids will grow up used to flying robots buzzing over farms like tiny crop dusters.

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Robotic Farming

This robot blends in. It looks like a small tractor.



A Nimble-Wheeled Farm Robot Goes to Work in Minnesota

Corn is planted on 100 million acres in the United States, and nitrogen fertilizer runoff is a major pollution problem. .... GPS-guided tractors routinely apply seed and fertilizer across large areas, and new airborne drones are providing farmers with high-resolution sensing ability ..... the ability to apply fertilizer at precise times and locations is “very critical.” ..... The next step is to deploy multiple Rowbots on industrial-scale farms, and to add more sensing capacity to the machines. The company is also testing using them for planting seed on cornfields for fall crops, called cover crops, while the mature corn is still standing.

Agricultural Drones

the vanguard of farmers who are using what was once military aviation technology to grow better grapes using pictures from the air, part of a broader trend of using sensors and robotics to bring big data to precision agriculture.

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Farmville Has Not Been Loading For Me

Over a week back I called Steve Jobs a Pied Piper. (The iPad Is No Laptop Killer) My farmville game has not been loading since. Did Steve Jobs get someone to mess with my Flash?

I got started with Farmville in December. I was reading about it a lot. Finally I gave in. Obviously I started the poorest farmer in my neighborhood. Soon I was the richest. I was hooked to the game. I entered the fray out of business curiosity, and I ended up really appreciating some of the social aspects of the game.

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Then not long back a friend of mine who I did not know had more points than me befriended me and now he was the richest farmer in my neighborhood. I was working hard to win back my title, and that is when the Pied Piper episode happened.

I tried the usual remedies like uninstalling and reinstalling Flash. No effect whatsoever.

I am thinking perhaps I attained Farmville nirvana somewhere along the way, and there is nothing more left to do for me at Farmville. That is an explanation I could live with.

In the mean time I have focused my energies on blogging and actively commenting at other people's blogs. That also feels like farming.

Farmville Farmer's Market: My Idea

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Information As Service, Service As Information

Image via Wikipedia

Political Sci-Fi
The Energy Solution: Nuclear Energy

Imagine we have solved the food problem. We have. We produce more than people can eat. We just never figured out how to distribute all that food we produce. Imagine we only produce environmentally neutral products, all electric cars and so on. There is abundant electricity from nuclear energy for all humanity. And there is universal, wireless, mobile broadband. In that post agricultural, post industrial, post electricity, post information age, all that we know as cutting edge and exciting today will have become utilities. At that point much of the excitement will be in the service sector.

Information processing, content creation and search will always be as expansive as the human mind. There will never be any cure to curiosity. We are built curious. At that point the two most exciting economic frontiers will remain screen time and face time: information and service.

Why d

Image by Digital Papercuts via Flickr

o I bring this up? Is this escapism on my part? I don't expect to see that post agricultural, post industrial, post electricity, post information age for decades. But what I do expect to see, what I am already seeing is the emergence of the same in pockets. It is already happening. Why would a Third World guy like me have an interest in those pockets? Why am I out to betray my peoples whose immediate needs are more mundane? Because you have to constantly inhabit the future to constantly seek the quickest, best routes to the present.

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