For the last four years, Planet and Corteva, a global pure-play agriculture company that provides a diverse mix of seed, crop protection and digital solutions to farmers around the world, have been building and providing joint solutions to growers allowing them to more seamlessly monitor crop health and boost productivity. In July 2021, Planet entered into a definitive merger agreement with dMY Technology Group, Inc. IV (NYSE: DMYQ), a special purpose acquisition company, to become a publicly traded company.

The collaboration began even before the formation of Corteva Agriscience and has grown in large part due to the collaboration and the chance Corteva Agriscience and Planet took on one another.

“If we look back at the beginning, the focus was about how we were going to create value for the agriculture industry together, specifically, for the grower. Today, we still have that same mentality that we are figuring it out together,”

said John Davidson, Senior Director of Product at Granular, a wholly owned subsidiary of Corteva Agriscience.

To date, the companies have accelerated technology offerings side-by-side, working together and co-developing big ideas and visions to create a mutually beneficial relationship.

“It’s been about collaboration and that spirit of trying to achieve and create unique value into the agriculture sector,”

said Davidson.

“It is hard to do what Planet is doing. There are a lot of hurdles to getting so many satellites in orbit. Beyond that, we have walked into this collaboration with a strong set of expectations. We have numerous use cases that echo our customers’ needs and have pushed Planet to meet the requirements for data to serve those use cases,”

said Dr. Christopher Seifert, Vice President of Data Science at Granular.

One of the ways this collaboration has grown is through the sheer scale of imagery Corteva consumes, here Corteva has played a key role in pushing Planet to expand its scale on a daily basis across all industries.

“We may not be the largest consumer, but on a daily scale basis, I think we are consistently pushing the limits of the scalability of the services,”

said Davidson.

During this time, Planet has scaled not only its offerings but also the customer base as well, serving more than 600 customers and 200 partners, always keeping the customer experience at the forefront. This relationship has enabled both companies to expand as big players in each of their respective markets. Through the years, Corteva and Planet have collaborated to optimize Planet’s products and data for the greatest output.

“We’re definitely maturing in the view of where Planet data is the best fit for much of what we’re doing. Research and development (R&D) has driven some of that, previous geographic expansion of the offerings has also driven some of that. It took us a while to get moving and really consume a lot of the Planet data and figuring out how to leverage it, and then it took off pretty quickly,”

said Seifert.

“Right now, we’re using Planet imagery in Argentina, Brazil, the EU, Canada, and all over the world with some of our seed production as well,”

said Davidson.

Since the Corteva team has shown the growers how to look at the data, the number of applications from the growers and farmers has grown substantially. As a farm operation becomes larger or more geographically spaced out, the ability to see what is going on quickly becomes important.

“A lot of our farmers have many thousands of acres that they’re working with and they may be spread out over multiple counties. They’re trying to understand and figure out what to do very quickly. Both PlanetScope and SkySat enable growers to see what is happening and detect actual problems,”

said Davidson.

“And this is what we do with our directed scouting product: enable growers to detect changes in their fields to help them understand what is going on and which ones to tend to first. Being able to go and be that trusted advisor for the farmers that they work with is critical. This is one of the tools that they must be ahead of the game. It allows them to use their time more wisely and pinpoint the areas most critical to look at,”

said Seifert.

For growers, the most crucial data to pair with satellite data is historical yield data.

“Growers can see the differences in their fields versus where it was a few days ago or a week ago and determine if the field is historically high-performing, or low-performing. Having that knowledge in Granular® Insights is exceedingly useful as well as planted data. To know what you planted in various places and see if there’s some troubleshooting you can do. Every additional data layer that you can add to Planet data is a way of troubleshooting problems that you might be seeing. You can look at Planet on one side and you can look at what crops you planted or even look at the historical harvest without ever stepping foot in the fields. It’s pretty miraculous just looking at all this data they have and being able to process it really quickly and understand how it all fits together,”

added Davidson.

“We’re tracking large swaths of the planet on a daily basis to detect changes as quickly as possible. There are parts of the world that are exceptionally cloudy and so being able to pull different data sets together creates the potential for real value. Using fusion to fix those problems could open up some very productive parts of the globe for us,”

said Seifert. He added:

“Planet, with its innovation and setting up smaller satellites to get more frequent data collection, helps boost the ability to innovate and to help provide value for farmers in a number of areas.,”

Through this collaboration, Corteva and Planet have maintained a strict focus on enabling progress in the agriculture sector. With this shared focus, Planet continues to expand its offerings to new and existing markets, making change visible, accessible, and actional to industries across the globe.

The post Future of Farming: Driving Farmer Value through Satellite-Powered Directed Scouting appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

Crossing the street, brushing our teeth, and drinking coffee, all come with varying degrees of hazard. This is why we wait for cars, spit out our toothpaste, and limit our caffeine intake. In fact, managing our exposure to activities and substances that are potentially harmful, is simply part of life.

And yet, virtually all substances have the potential to cause harm. Even water, in certain amounts, is lethal. The dose dictates the poison!

So, when a system classifies substances based exclusively on their hazard or risk, that system ignores the most important factor – the degree to which we are exposed. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) cancer classification, for example, virtually disregards exposure amounts or limits, when labeling carcinogenic substances or activities.

On the other hand, the Canadian Government regulates medications and pesticides with the understanding that everything comes with associated risks. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), an entity within Health Canada, determines whether a pesticide product can be used safely, based on the amount that is necessary to control the pests. They then establish limitations on how the product should be used, so that both humans and the environment are thoroughly protected.

I came to Canada in 2010 to study plant biology at the University of Alberta. Today, as a PhD scientist, my role is to understand ‘the science behind the agricultural practices’. So, joining the regulatory team at Corteva Agriscience in 2014 was a great fit for me.

Of course, as a scientist, I was also very curious about how a big corporation operates. Is their science reliable? Who works there? Do farmers have a choice or are they being forced to use their technologies?

The good news is that scientists like me at Corteva are held to the same ethical standards as the scientists I worked with at the university research level. Remember, to earn a PhD, it takes at least 11 years of university studies.

The public wants to know more about the food they eat. Where does it come from? Who’s growing it? How is it being grown? And they are exposed to multiple sources of information that are driving their eating habits. This is an incredible opportunity for farmers who want to help the public understand what they do, how they do it, and why. To help inform the public, you must understand how PMRA assesses the safety of pesticides.

It takes approximately 10 years to come up with a new pesticide that’s unique, beneficial to farmers, safe to humans, and safe to the environment. This is not an easy task. Especially when you consider that our chemistry and biology scientists begin the process choosing from more than 100,000 possible chemicals to end up with one or two that meet or surpass the criteria.

Once the thoroughly-researched chemical candidates are chosen to become products, further studies are conducted to determine the pest it controls. Tests are also conducted to assess the optimal application rates, and its safety to humans and the environment, based on the proposed application patterns and volumes.

Overall, it takes nearly 150 separate studies to assess the safety and efficacy of a chemical product. This is a huge investment for innovator companies.

PMRA, as other agencies around the world, evaluates the safety and integrity of a chemical pesticide product by several types of studies in the scientific areas of:

• Chemistry. Farmers can be reassured that what’s in the package will work as expected.
• Toxicology. Any chemical – even water or coffee – has the potential to cause negative effects if a person is overexposed. For pesticides, PMRA wants to know the safe amounts everyone in the population can be exposed to in the short and the long term.
• Occupational exposure. Based on the proposed label uses, PMRA assesses exposure to the applicators and bystanders. Then, the personal protective equipment and the re-entry time are established, which provide instructions on how to apply the product safely.
• Environmental toxicology. Crops are not isolated environments. There may be animals visiting the field, or a natural forest may be near.  To assess the potential effect of the pesticide on non-target species, PMRA uses worst-case scenarios to test environmental toxicology (or example, a bird feeding exclusively from a field that has been treated).
• Residues. Once a pesticide is sprayed, it acts on the pest and then starts to degrade. PMRA assesses studies that show how much pesticide residues there are on the crop at different times after spraying and up to harvest.  PMRA then establishes the maximum residue limit (MRL) – the amount of pesticide residue that is acceptable and expected when the label is followed.
• Environmental fate. PMRA needs to understand how long it will take for the product to dissipate or breakdown and how the product moves in soil, water, and air. Considering the physical and chemical characteristics of the compound, PMRA can establish the fate of the product once it is sprayed.
• Value. Any label claim (such as this product controls unwanted pests) must be demonstrated through field trials before it can be approved by PMRA. The rate that is used to control a pest must be enough for consistent control but cannot be more than is needed.

Pesticides are one of the most regulated chemicals on the planet. Many studies from several different scientific areas are reviewed by regulatory agencies before a pesticide is considered for registration. We can be confident that registered pesticides can be used safely, while bringing tremendous benefits to the environment, producing more on less land. Pesticides also make good economic sense, keeping food prices low, and ensure that farmers have the right tools to grow their crops.

Source: Corteva

The post Corteva explains what we can learn from Canada’s process for unpacking new pesticides appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.