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JOSH LESSING, CTO, APPHARVEST -
AGTECH FARMING (AND THE ROBOT PICKING YOUR PRODUCE)
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Josh Lessing, CTO, AppHarvest -
AgTech farming (and the robot picking your produce)
Climate change, a growing global population, and land degradation are depleting the natural resources we rely on to grow our food -- causing massive volatility and instability in our food supply chain. But it’s not all agricultural doom and gloom. In the heart of Appalachia, in Kentucky, is an agtech company called AppHarvest that operates acres upon acres of glass-encased, high-tech greenhouses. Inside these controlled environments grow hundreds of thousands of tomato plants that soon will be followed by berries and salad greens. The crops thrive on precise amounts of light and rainwater and get picked at the peak of ripeness by AI-powered robots and their human coworkers. From Central Appalachia, the fruits and veggies can reach nearly 70% of the U.S. population, delivered to a grocery store or restaurant within a single day’s drive. Josh Lessing, Chief Technology Officer at AppHarvest, joins us to share how the company is developing sustainable agricultural practices, helping to reduce food insecurity, and collecting vast amounts of data to predict and perfect the way we grow our food.
LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE TO LEARN:
- Factors at play powering the agtech industry’s multi-billion dollar growth
- How AppHarvest’s tech stack works to precisely control and monitor the amount of water, light, C02, humidity, and beneficial insects needed to grow its crops
- How Virgo the harvesting robot uses biomimicry — its “eyes,” “arms,” and “hands”— to find the least obstructed path to pick produce, just like a human would
- The early days of Virgo and how it used computer vision and deep learning to understand the plant environment in 2D and 3D
- How machine learning and statistical models allow Virgo to determine whether a pick attempt was successful, evolving into more finessed autonomous modes
- How data insights help predict short- and long-term crop yields, informing everything from staffing, to sales, to transportation and shipping logistics
- How autonomous ground vehicles and AI optimize the consistent flow of produce through AppHarvest’s facilities, from getting packed to palletized
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