Farmbot: The first CNC farming robot!

The Farmbot acts like a CNC cutter but it plants seeds, waters, and weeds small scale gardens. Spot watering means less weeds to deal with and less water used.

1. Different heads do different tasks like planting seeds, watering, etc.
2. Has drag and drop farm designer software. 
3. Powered by Raspberry Pi and Arduino MegaMicro controller.
4. Automatically rotates crops over seasons. 
5. Configure it to plant what you want, in any location in the bed. 
6. Has soil sensor. 
7. Has camera to watch how your garden grows and looks for weeds. Weeds are pushed underground. 

Source
Innovation To Inspire. (Site appears to be gone now.)

Farmers know how dangerous dicamba is

Highlights: 

1. Dicamba use will expand a lot in 2017.
2. Make sure to wash dicamba tanks REALLY well. Not doing so can result in crop damage and legal problems.
3. A triple rinse is advised.
4. Damage from that chemical "shows up at much lower levels" than some other herbicides, said Fred Whitford, a professor in Purdue University's pesticide program. 
5. Disposing of rinse water can be tricky as even small amounts of dicamba are dangerous. 

Source
The Progressive Farmer.

Danish study: GM soy linked to sick pigs

Don't forget about this one from 2012. Farmers are learning how huge losses are caused by GM feed. But it's not the GM feed that's the problem, it's the pesticides, especially glyphosate, sprayed on the feed. Glyphosate is a systemic chemical, it's in all parts of the plant, and it can't be washed off. Many studies show it's harmful to mammals and mammal cells.

A Danish farming newspaper has caused quite a stir by devoting a sizeable part of its 13 April edition to the discoveries by pig farmer lb Borup Pedersen that GM soy has a damaging effect both on his animals and on his farming profitability. On the front page of the paper there was a lead story under the headline "Pig farmer reaps gains from GMO-free soy". On a sidebar the paper referred to Mr Pedersen's contention that DDT and Thalidomide were minor problems when set alongside GMOs and Glyphosate. In an Editorial Comment on page 2, the paper argued that it would be grossly irresponsible for the authorities to ignore or ridicule the discoveries made by the farmer in his pig farming operations, and it congratulated the authorities for commissioning a new study designed to determine whether stomach lesions and other effects might be associated with GM soy; in the study 100 animals will be fed with non-GM soy and 100 with GM soy in their diets.

Mr. Borup Pederson talked to a mainstream Danish farming newspaper (Effektivt Landbrug).


In his discussions with GM-Free Cymru Mr Pedersen itemised the following effects:

1. Within 2 days diarrhoea virtually disappeared in the farrowing house, whereas before we had used 50-100 ml Borgal / day.
2. Since switching, we have not experienced death from bloat in sows or death by ulcers, as opposed to minimum 1 per month previously. (36 sows died due to stomach related sickness over the last two years before switching)
3. No sows have died through loss of appetite, whereas 2 sows died from this cause last year.
4. Even without washing between farrowings, diarrhoea does not now reappear. Previously when we failed to wash between sows, we noticed more diarrhoea.
5. Previously we have struggled with diarrhoea in first layer sows, we do not have this problem any more!
6. Two years ago when the diarrhoea was as its worst, we had months with nearly 30% dead in the farrowing house. At that time it was impossible to find sows that could nurse piglets.
7. Before it was unusual to have a sow with 13 piglets weaned. The average was about 10.5 per sow plus spare mothers. Now we are getting over 12 piglets on average weaned and 14 piglets weaned per sow is common. We have fewer nursing sows, simply because the sows are milking better and eating more.
8. Sows farrow better and we have 0.3 more live births per sow, of which 0.2 is gained from fewer stillborn. Now we have 14.9 liveborn and 1.6 stillborn, averaged over the past 7 months.
9. The piglets weaned are stronger and more evenly sized.
10. Man-hours are reduced by 20-30 hours per month, partly by washing less and because everything is easier.

 This isn't a full-blown study, but still, it's very telling and should point the way to a larger study.


Links
Post from GMWatch.

Demand for organic feed increasing

This mill wants farmers to have animal feed which doesn't sicken their animals. Sick and dead animals are expensive for farmers.

Farmers describe how GMO feed makes their animals sick:

Many things were tried, but the one common thread among the farmers on the film was that they all ditched GMO feed for a non-GMO blend. The improvements were significant and they were noticed in a short period of time. The cows and pigs continued to improve more and more as time went on.

Danish farmer switches to non-GMO feed, health of pigs improve dramatically.

Iowa farmer switches to non-GMO feed, drug costs for animals cut in half. Jim Blomgren switches to non-GMO seed, which is cheaper.

Long-term toxicology study on pigs fed GMO feed. PDF. ISSN 1177-4258. Journal of Organic Systems, 2013. Flawed study claims GMO feed is safe. Discussion here.

Source
Scratch and Peck.

Iowa Farmer: GMOs are complete failure

An Iowa farmer tells how GMO crops kill critical birds and insects. (This year for the first time ever I have to hand pollinate my own cukes.) George Naylor comes form a long line of farmers. With GMO crops farmers go into a spiral of debt one reason being because they cannot collect their own seed, they must buy new seed each year. Even the corn rootworm has become resistant to GMO crops.

GMO crops also produce super weeds. Roundup Ready crops add poisonous glyphosate to foods. See Breakfast foods contain glyphosate.

And just a few more problems:

1. India has GMO problems.
2. Some plants produce the poison Bt. Monarch caterpillars killed by Bt pollen. 
3. Aphids stopped ignoring GMO wheat in UK. 

Source
NaturalNews.

Danish farmer changes pig feed to non-GMO, pig health dramatically improves

Link here. Scroll down to Part 1.

2013: Danish farmer lb Borup Pedersen is not an organic pig farmer, but a regular, intensive pig farmer. When he replaced GMO feed with non-GMO pig feed in 2011, the health of his pigs improved immediately. Danish pig farming is known as the most efficient, with an average of 30 weaned pigs per year per sow, but with antibiotic use of only 50mg/kg. The influence of big biotech is far less in Denmark than in other parts of the world.

I quote the itemized effects from Mr. Pederson:

1. Within 2 days diarrhoea virtually disappeared in the farrowing house, whereas before we had used 50-100 ml Borgal / day.
2. Since switching, we have not experienced death from bloat in sows or death by ulcers, as opposed to minimum 1 per month previously. (36 sows died due to stomach related sickness over the last two years before switching)
3. No sows have died through loss of appetite, whereas 2 sows died from this cause last year.
4. Even without washing between farrowings, diarrhoea does not now reappear. Previously when we failed to wash between sows, we noticed more diarrhoea.
5. Previously we have struggled with diarrhoea in first layer sows, we do not have this problem any more!
6. Two years ago when the diarrhoea was as its worst, we had months with nearly 30% dead in the farrowing house. At that time it was impossible to find sows that could nurse piglets.
7. Before it was unusual to have a sow with 13 piglets weaned. The average was about 10.5 per sow plus spare mothers. Now we are getting over 12 piglets on average weaned and 14 piglets weaned per sow is common. We have fewer nursing sows, simply because the sows are milking better and eating more.
8. Sows farrow better and we have 0.3 more live births per sow, of which 0.2 is gained from fewer stillborn. Now we have 14.9 liveborn and 1.6 stillborn, averaged over the past 7 months.
9. The piglets weaned are stronger and more evenly sized.
10. Man-hours are reduced by 20-30 hours per month, partly by washing less and because everything is easier. 

Clearly, something is very wrong with GMOs.

Glyphosate found in urine

Glyphosate found in urine of all samples. Link to English. Dutch and French versions also available.

The urine of city workers, journalists and lawyers, who had no direct contact with glyphosate, was examined for glyphosate contamination by a research team at the University of Leipzig. The study found glyphosate in all urine samples at values ranging from 0.5 to 2 ng glyphosate per ml urine (drinking water limit: 0.1 ng / ml). None of the examinees had direct contact with agriculture.

Even more dangerous now is the increasing use of herbicides in the EU over the past several years for the desiccation of entire stocks of harvestable crop. “Spraying crops to death”, as desiccation should be more aptly called, means that herbicides are being sprayed directly on the crops shortly before they are to be harvested to facilitate the harvest by uniformly killing off all living plants (including the crops) on the field. 

In 2009, a Seralini study shows glyphosphate kills cell cultures.

Another study shows unhealthy people have extremely high levels of glyphosate in their urine.

A study showing glyphosate in breast milk. Monsanto claims glyphosate is excreted out of the body. This article debunks the study. You decide if the debunking shows science or politics is more important.

Glyphosate found in the blood in 2013 (pdf) of people from 18 different countries, 182 samples. Another study of how glyphosate affects blood cells. Website of study abstract here.

Hillary supports GMOs which use glyphosate.

2004 Study: Monitoring farms and their families for glyphosate. Some points:

1. We evaluated 24-hr composite urine samples for each family member the day before, the day of, and for 3 days after a glyphosate application. 
2. Sixty percent of farmers had detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine on the day of application. The geometric mean (GM) concentration was 3 ppb, the maximum value was 233 ppb, and the highest estimated systemic dose was 0.004 mg/kg. 
3. Farmers who did not use rubber gloves had higher GM urinary concentrations than did other farmers (10 ppb vs. 2.0 ppb).

2013 News: EPA raises residue limits of glyphosate on food. Not good. Here's the actual document though comments are closed.

The EPA page on glyphosate. This EPA page has links to tolerance limits (from EPA), studies, and more. EPA limits on drinking water contaminants. For glyphosphate, scroll down to Organic Chemicals.