Giving away nutritious fresh fruits and vegetables has been, and still is, our response to the economic disarray resulting from the coronavirus situation.

Our food donation program has been entirely funded privately by Agrotonomy and its officers. Agrotonomy is not a non-profit organization, and this is why, in 2021, we will be reducing slightly our donation program to 75% of our entire production, versus 95% in 2020.

Our initiative has been well-publicized through Facebook and other social media platforms: our efforts have inspired many other farmers and gardeners around the world to share a certain percentage of their harvests with their disadvantaged neighbors.

Agrotonomy has set up the first aeroponic vertical farms in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East: We are currently working with our partner Tower Farms in Africa and Southeast Asia to launch similar fresh food donation programs as well.

The problem with most food bank initiatives is that due to logistics, the majority of all foods collected and donated are either canned and/or processed. This is why we believe in contributing to ‘the solution’ by donating pesticide-free and highly nutritious fresh crops to those in need.

We use aeroponic towers which allow us to save up to 95% water in comparison to conventional farming.

Aside from our food donation program in Ibiza, Spain, we are also the team behind Towers Without Borders Inc., a US non-profit organization (501-C3 registered in Arizona). Towers Without Borders is a charity committed to set up aeroponic vertical farms for orphanages around the world.

From seeds to seedlings, and from seedlings to harvests, children are encouraged through various programs to get involved with growing plants. Teaching children the value of food security is the best gift that we can give to the next generation of adults.

Over the next 18 months, with the support of Agrotonomy’s team, Towers Without Borders will be setting up 3 vertical farms for orphanages in Mexico, Colombia, and Kenya. We were supposed to be almost done with these 3 projects by mid-2021, however, due to COVID-19, their implementation has been significantly delayed.

Although Agrotonomy is still committed to developing fully automated aeroponic Tower Farms around the world for the commercial sector, our passion truly lies in our charitable endeavors!

Ron Finley (the ‘gangsta gardener’) once said “Growing food is like printing your own money”: such a statement bears even a stronger meaning when we are all going through a pandemic….. 2021 is going to be a challenging year! You can count on us to donate up to 75% of our production

Source: Agrotronomy

The post Responding to Coronavirus with Vertical Farming! appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

The Baby Compact model presents some important advantages:

First of all it reduces Labor: C&M Transplanters set the plant straight-up and the packing wheels pack the dirt around the plant for a healthy start. Plus with this transplanter you don’t need a whole crew to follow it. Furthermore, the speed: The engineering of the equipment is smooth and consistent.

C&M Transplanter represent quality, heavy-duty construction and reliability. In addition to that, they demonstrate a Consistently Improving: in fact, much of the competition has remained virtually the same for many years.

Also the Product Support is a very important advantage: C&M has been part of the USA market for close to 20 years and they have resources to help costumers to understand how to adjust the settings to perform.

The post The New Checchi & Magli Vegetable Transplanter appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

For more than 20 years Grimme has been offering powerful and crop-protecting technology for storing potatoes, carrots, onions and other vegetables and has set the standard with electro-hydraulic drives. For the 2020 season, the RH-receiving hoppers series has been extensively revised and equipped with new practical features.

Perfectly prepared for all transport vehicles

A good seal between the transport vehicle and the receiving hopper minimizes the loss of harvested crop and improves the cleanliness and hygiene of the entire storage process. Since transport vehicles have different contours in practice, the sealing rubber intake flaps must be particularly flexible and quickly adaptable. Grimme has therefore completely revised the design and function of the receiving area to further improve the quick and safe “docking” of the transport vehicles.

The lower support strip, which enables easy rearward manoeuvring to the hopper, especially for transport vehicles with a deep underride guard, is able to move to the rear for improved material protection. Three rubber lips are fitted to the lateral bunker walls, each of them subdivided into three parts. In this way the rubber lips adapt to any vehicle contour. The rubber intake flaps are now ball-bearing mounted. They are height-adjustable without tools, so that it can be quickly and easily adapted to the different heights of transport vehicles. Losses while filling the receiving hopper can now be prevented even more effectively.

VarioFlow: High throughput and crop protection

The transition from the grading or cleaning rollers onto the cross conveyor is often the limiting factor of a receiving hopper, as the crop can only be fed onto the cross conveyor on one side. With the new VarioFlow, Grimme offers an optional available transfer device consisting of two PU spiral rollers with mechanically adjustable height. With this transfer device, more crop can be transferred more evenly to the crop cross conveyor, which significantly increases the conveying capacity. The transfer height of the two PU spiral rollers onto the cross conveyor can be infinitely adjusted by means of one spindle each on the left and right side of the machine. This adjustment enables the two PU spiral rollers to mesh together when adjusting between different discharge heights, ultimately this leads to increased crop protection. By having a minimum transfer height to the discharging cross conveyor on one side, maximum crop protection is achieved. On the lower side of the conveyor the passage is increased as the rollers are lifted out of the crop flow. At the same time the transfer height remains minimal because the crop is transferred onto other crop on the downstream-side of the conveyor. The result is a significant increase in throughput capacity, while maintaining a high level of crop protection.

Simplified maintenance for the hopper floor drive chain

The new lubricator offers a practical solution for oiling the hopper chain and therefore increases the durability to a maximum. Maintenance and care of the machine is considerably simplified for the operator, as manual lubrication of the hopper floor chain is no longer necessary.

Source: Grimme

The post Grimme adds new features to the RH-receiving hoppers appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.