BlueNalu Signs MOU with Pulmuone, Announces Partnership Bringing Cell-Based Seafood to South Korea - BlueNalu, Inc.

#foodtech #cellularagriculture #cellular #startups #aquaculture

BlueNalu, a leading food technology company developing cell-based seafood products, announced today the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Pulmuone Co. Ltd., a leader in healthy lifestyle and environmentally-friendly food products headquartered in South Korea. Pulmuone also participated in BlueNalu’s A round of financing, which was announced earlier this year.

Global demand for seafood is at an all-time high and continues to increase, particularly in Asia, where the two companies believe cell-based seafood can supplement the current supply of wild-caught and farm-raised fish. BlueNalu’s cellular aquaculture technology will allow it to produce a wide array of seafood products from a variety of species, without genetic modification, and will be free of microplastics, toxins, mercury and other environmental contaminants. The global pandemic has brought awareness to the vulnerability of our food supply. Cell-based seafood is a solution to food security and addresses the important issues of traceability, transparency and safety.

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BlueNalu Signs MOU with Pulmuone, Announces Partnership Bringing Cell-Based Seafood to South Korea - BlueNalu, Inc.

BlueNalu, a leading food technology company developing cell-based seafood products, announced today the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Pulmuone Co. Ltd., a leader in healthy lifestyle and environmentally-friendly food products headquartered in South Korea. Pulmuone also particip

Hydroponics: Startup's computerized vegetable-growing machine taking root - Heliponix

#hyroponics #soillessagriculture #smartcities #verticalfarming #urbanfarming #agritech

While Heliponix’s in-home computerized vegetable-growing machine has always seemed like a great idea, the coronavirus pandemic might be the push needed to get the wider public to realize what the company’s two young founders have been espousing since the startup sprouted in 2016.

Since March, interest in the firm’s product — called GroPod — has been rising faster than Jack’s beanstalk. The fact that Scott Massey, 25, and Ivan Ball, 26, originally bootstrapped the company with money they earned delivering newspapers in West Lafayette is certainly icing on the cake — or perhaps more appropriately, dressing on the salad.

Heliponix’s GroPod product fits under a homeowner’s kitchen counter, much like a dishwasher or wine cooler. It uses a hydroponics system, which means no soil is needed.

It costs $2,000, but Massey is confident that once production ramps up, the price of the unit will decline, possibly to half of what it now costs. Despite the GroPod’s hefty price tag, the biggest revenue generator for the company will be seed subscriptions.

“We make more on the subscription in a year than we do on the machine at one time,” Massey said.

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Startup's computerized vegetable-growing machine taking root

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - While Heliponix's in-home computerized vegetable-growing machine has always seemed like a great idea, the coronavirus pandemic might be the push needed to get the wider public to realize what the company's two young founders have been espousing since the startup sprouted in 2016.

Indian Government launches PM FME scheme to help micro food processing enterprises

#food #foodprocessing #government #india #microenterprises

The Indian government on Monday launched a Rs 10,000 crore scheme for micro enterprises which offers 50% subsidy for storage and transportation to prevent distress sale by farmers.

The scheme, called Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Enterprises (PM FME), aims to bring in new technology, apart from affordable credit to help small entrepreneurs penetrate new markets.

The scheme will be implemented for five years until 2024-25. It will generate investment of Rs 35,000 core, generate 900,000 jobs and help 800,000 units.

Under the PM FME scheme, micro enterprises will get 35% subsidy on project cost, with a ceiling of Rs 10 lakh. The beneficiaries will have to contribute at least 10% of the project cost while the balance will come from loans. Nearly 200,000 micro enterprises will get credit-linked subsidy support.

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Govt launches PM FME scheme to help micro food processing enterprises

New Delhi: The government on Monday launched a Rs 10,000 crore scheme for micro enterprises which offers 50% subsidy for storage and transportation to prevent distress sale by farmers.

Reliance Jio: Reliance Looks To Conquer Farm-To-Fork Supply Chain Market With JioKrishi

#agriculture #agritech #india #farmers #farming #intelligentfarming

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries and Reliance Jio Platforms are banking on the new partnership with Facebook to expand into the agritech domain with the JioKrishi app. The JioKrishi app will offer farm-to-fork supply chain support as well as data analytics.

Reliance recently launched the JioKrishi app to help farmers undertake precision farming aided by farmland data. The app, which is currently in beta mode, will use data analytics to alert the farmers about the right time to sow, irrigate, and fertilise the crops. The company believes that this will increase their productivity and yield.

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Reliance Looks To Conquer Farm-To-Fork Supply Chain Market With JioKrishi

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries and Reliance Jio Platforms are banking on the new partnership with Facebook to expand into the agritech domain with the JioKrishi app. The JioKrishi app will offer farm-to-fork supply chain support as well as data analytics.

How Hormonal Growth Factors, using Boron, Gibberellic Acid and Ethrel, can improve the yield of vegetables

#agriculture #organicfarming #farming #farmingwithminimumcost #agricultutre

I did week-end agriculture way back in 2005 to 2006 to grow vegetables, mainly bottle gourd (Loki) and bitter gourd (Karela) by only using natural organic compounds without use of any chemicals whatsoever. These vegetables are chosen as their prices don’t fluctuate during the entire period of the year.

Many farmers do not know the fact that both bottle gourd and bitter gourd plants have both male and female flowers, and yield depends only on number of female flowers. In bottle gourd the ratio is usually 11:1 i.e. there is one female flower for every 11 male flowers. Similar, in bitter gourd, the ratio is 25:1.

I wanted to see whether this sex ratio can be tweaked in favour of female flowers, using natural minerals or acids. Then I found that by spraying Ethrel and Boron (in ppm and only two or three sprays) at a four leaf stage we can change the ratio. Similarly, I used Gibberellic acid at flower stage to retain as many flowers as possible. With these methods I used to get tremendous yield and these vegetables used to be fresh even after keeping it for 10-15 days without refrigeration.

Some of the search articles on the issue:-

For the readers, I am giving links for some of the research articles on how Boron and Ethrel effects sex ratio and yield in bottle gourd and bitter gourd farming:- 

Significant increase in growth and fruit characters would be obtained by the spraying of ethrel @200 ppm at 2 and 4 true leaves for bottle gourd:- https://www.ijcmas.com

GA3 (Gibberellic Acid) @ 50 ppm was effective for enhancement in vegetative growth, fruit and seed yield and modification of sex expression while sprayed twice at three leaf stage for bitter gourd: https://www.researchgate.net

How Boron @4 ppm decreased number of days to first male, flower production, reduced male: female flower ratio for bitter gourd:  https://www.ijcmas.com 

Last but not the least, these are very cheap material available anywhere in India, which can be used to reduce the cost of agriculture and increase the yield beyond the traditional methods of agriculture.

Agriculture: Dwindling bee pollination serious concern for sustainable agriculture and food production

#agriculture #yield #organicfarming #pollination #bees #honeybees

A large proportion of agricultural yield in crop farming, gardening and fruit production depends on pollination by bees. The crop yield is significantly higher with pollination by bees. This applies to all kinds of fruit such as apples, strawberries and cherries, almost all oilseeds such as rapeseed, linseed and safflower, and all kinds of vegetables such as beans, peas and cucumbers. The seed production of fodder crops and vegetables also benefits from bee pollination.

The flowers that are pollinated by bees form fruit that is much larger, heavier and better shaped. They are also much better quality.

The increase in yield in some of the crops due to bee pollination:-

1. Mustard - 43%

2. Sunflower - 32-48%

3. Cotton - 17-19%

4. Onion - 93%

5. Apple - 44%

With increased use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, bee population has been declining effecting our food production. So, natural organic farming combined with placing bee hives in proper place in the agricultural fields improves yield drastically.

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TNAU Agritech Portal :: Sustainable Agriculture

Bee visits plants for its food, nectar and pollen. This floral fidelity of bees is due to their preference for nectars having sugar contents and pollens with higher nutritive values. Besides getting food for the bees as a result of their visit pollinate a number of crops.

Agricultural Tech: This MeitY-backed deeptech startup AIGROEDGE uses IoT sensors to monitor farms and improve crops

#agritech #farming #IoT #startups #agriculture #deeptech #ai #artificialintelligence #dataanalytics #saas

Delhi-based deeptech startup AIGROEDGE Technologies, co-founderd by Mayank Rajput, ABHAI TIWARI, and Akshay Taneja, has built a proprietary #IoT sensor that monitors agricultural lands in real-time and improves crop visibility for farmers.

AIGROEDGE has built a proprietary intelligent farming kit, which includes an Internet of Things (IoT) based sensory device known as ‘KRAASHAK’ and a #SaaS-based analytics platform called AgriVitals.

The Delhi-based startup measures soil parameters (temperature, moisture, conductivity, pH level, moisture absorbance rate); environmental parameters (temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, light intensity, CO2 level, and weather data from external stations); and geographic parameters in real-time by deploying multiple sensor nodes across agricultural fields. Typically, one acre of land requires five sensors to capture adequate data.

AIGROEDGE operates on a B2B model; its customers include farms and agritech firms, genetic and plant breeding companies, and government and farm finance providers.

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This MeitY-backed deeptech startup uses IoT sensors to monitor farms and improve crops

Serial entrepreneur and innovator Mayank Rajput has dabbled in sensory systems, electronics, and material design for almost seven years. This is the electronics engineer's second entrepreneurship stint after StretchSkin Technologies, which he founded in 2018. The Singapore-based startupbuilds stretchable and wearable sensory systems for physical rehab, gaming, and training.

Agritech: Drone-delivered soap bubbles could help pollinate flowers, a research study shows

Source: Sciencemag.org

Bee population is dwindling due to consistent use of chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and others, having adverse impact on natural pollination and consequent agricultural productivity. As pollinators, bees are hard to beat. Still, that hasn’t prevented researchers from working on a high-tech alternative: drones that blow soap bubbles to transport pollen to a flower.

One advantage of using bubbles rather than feather brushes is that the bubbles require a lot less pollen. A feather brush, the researchers found, applies about 1800 milligrams of pollen to each flower, whereas the bubbles needed only 0.06 milligrams. That means farmers would have to gather far less pollen before manually pollinating their flowers, if they’re adding it to a soap solution.

Still, I prefer to add beehives (we can purchase them) by keep them at unreachable heights in your agricultural fields, rather than using drones with pollen bubble guns to pollinate our plants and vegetables.

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Drone-delivered soap bubbles could help pollinate flowers

As pollinators, bees are hard to beat. Still, that hasn't prevented researchers from working on a high-tech alternative: drones that blow soap bubbles to transport pollen to a flower. It's a "really cool" approach, says Henry Williams, a roboticist at the University of Auckland, who was not involved in the work.

Funding alert - Rural fintech startup Jai Kisan raises Rs 30 Cr in Pre-Series A

Source:- YourStory Media

Author:- Trisha Medhi

Mumbai-based rural fintech platform Jai Kisan on Tuesday said that it raised Rs 30 crore in the Pre-Series A round of funding led by Arkam Ventures (previously known as Unitary Helion), with participation from NABVENTURES Fund I (backed by NABARD). This is the first time NABVENTURES has invested in the startup.

Existing investors such as Blume Ventures, Prophetic Ventures, and Better Capital also participated in the round, along with prominent leaders in finance and agriculture sectors such as an affiliate of The Chatterjee Group (TCG), Rajiv Sahney (New Vernon Capital), Sanjay Mariwala (Omniactive), and others.

Founded in 2017 by Texas A&M University graduates Arjun Ahluwalia and Adriel Maniego, Jai Kisan is building a rural fintech full-stack platform to cater to the financial needs of customers in rural emerging markets.

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[Funding alert] Rural fintech startup Jai Kisan raises Rs 30 Cr in Pre-Series A from Arkam Ventures, NABVENTURES, and others

Mumbai-based rural fintech platform Jai Kisan on Tuesday said that it raised Rs 30 crore in the Pre-Series A round of funding led by Arkam Ventures (previously known as Unitary Helion), with participation from NABVENTURES Fund I (backed by NABARD). This is the first time NABVENTURES has invested in the startup.