The Farm Service Agency is turning its Application Fast Track pilot for low-risk borrowers into a permanent programme, simplifying collateral reviews on direct loans, giving Preferred Lenders more authority to verify eligibility on guaranteed loans, and moving guaranteed-loan applications online.
Central State University's Hongmei Li-Byarlay is selecting colonies whose workers chew and bite the most mites, building genetic stocks as miticides lose their power and summer losses rise; the work matters more since USDA moved to close its Maryland bee lab.
Orchard Robotics founder Charlie Wu says his tractor-mounted AI camera, which counts and sizes fruit tree by tree, pays back three to ten times in its first year through labour and input savings, and the company is expanding from apples into a dozen other crops.
AgrotechA USDA data modernisation plan announced at the Farm Progress Show promises fewer survey burdens on producers and faster, more usable crop and livestock estimates.
TRIC Robotics has gone from half-acre trials in 2021 to treating more than 1,500 acres of commercial strawberries this year with a fleet of 15 autonomous machines that use ultraviolet light and bug vacuums in place of chemical pesticides.
California’s Bonsai Robotics says a learned vision model that turns 2D camera images into a 3D understanding of the field lets one autonomy system work across orchards, vineyards and berries; it has sold more than 400 units and its new Amiga Max platform is sold out for the year.
LivestockA USDA package centred on a new insurance endorsement would pay ranchers the difference when a heifer is worth more at slaughter than as breeding stock, alongside loans for regional processors.
Seattle laser-weeding company Carbon Robotics crossed $100 million in revenue in the year to March 2026, is building a new and still unannounced farm machine, and intends to become a publicly traded company, founder Paul Mikesell says.
North Carolina building-materials company Plantd, which was paying $13,000 a month to remove leftover grass biomass, has launched a biochar line made from that waste and is selling it to farmers as a soil amendment.
Texas-based Breedr has closed a $27 million Series B led by Partech’s impact fund to expand its livestock management platform, which holds records for more than 2 million cattle, into Australia, New Zealand and across the United States.
Rapid on-farm testing firm Alveo Technologies and wildfowl surveillance specialist AgriNerds are combining a daily risk forecast for 160,000 poultry sites with a 45-minute molecular test so farmers test when the risk is highest rather than after birds fall ill.
TerraBlaster, which uses a laser sensing technique first flown on the Mars rover to read nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and pH in the soil as a tractor moves, has raised a $12.5 million seed round led by Ulu Ventures ahead of commercial sales in 2027.
AgribusinessFruit, vegetable and nursery growers spend nearly three times the American average on labour, while corn farms spend 4 percent of their cash expenses on it.
