In order to help American farmers combating pest and crop disease, the leading pest and disease management company, Farm Dog Technologies, has signed an agreement with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop a regional pest and disease management platform on Aug. 14. The agreement is a Non-Funded Cooperative Agreement (NFCA) with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the USDA.
Prior to signing the agreement with the USDA, Farm Dog has proven its successful pest and disease management platform in South Florida to monitor the growing season. The company collected pest data from users, universities, and the government to create a pressure map of pest outbreaks in Florida. As a result, the map represents the real-time data of outbreaks.
The company’s pest and disease management platform enables a massive data collection from field scouting to identify the effect of pest outbreaks. Furthermore, the platform runs on a mobile application with sophisticated data analytics, which will be very useful for American farmers to monitor the outbreak of pest and disease that damages their crops.
Farm Dog CEO Liron Brish said the company’s platform makes use of the collective wisdom to protect crops based on two principles, cost effectiveness and environmental sustainability. He also expected the agreement with the USDA will help American farmers combat pests and enhance crop disease management as well.
“This NFCA is a testament to the work already completed as well as the ongoing potential for improving pest and disease management.”
Every year, invasive pests cause American farmers to lose millions of dollars. On a global level, pest and crop diseases have become the endemic problems for growers around the world. According to Farm Dog, the world’s growers spend almost $60 billion for pesticides each year. That amount is around 20 percent of the operating expenses for specialty crops. Yet, that does not guarantee the success of pest control efforts, as growers still suffer up to 40 percent crop loss every year. Therefore, a working pest control solution is needed.
Following years of research, Farm Dog has developed integrated pest management practices that can help farmers to prevent pests and crop disease. In order to implement the practice by American farmers, USDA and Farm Dog will extend the reach of the practice to growers all across America. The ARS’ Horticultural Research Laboratory in Fort Pierce, Florida, will also provide its geospatial expertise and analytics to improve Farm Dog’s integrated pest management practice.
[Featured Image by Fotokostic/iStock Image]
