Innovative modules created at the College of Agriculture and College of Engineering are mounted low and rotate to allow farm equipment to pass
Purdue University researchers have improved upon traditional solar energy structures used in agrivoltaic farming, a sustainable system that generates electricity from the sun while row crops like corn, rice, soybeans and wheat concurrently grow on the same land.
The patent-pending Purdue structures and software optimize food production for farmers and maximize solar energy production. Research about the improved agrivoltaic panels was published in the January 2023 issue of the peer-reviewed IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics. It also has been published in the Journal of Photovoltaic Technology and Nature Sustainability and presented at IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists conferences.
Rakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering from Purdue’s Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, said farmland in the United States already is used to generate energy from wind.
“But wind farms depend on the availability of wind energy and are limited to certain regions of the world,” Agrawal said, “whereas sunlight is available at most locations where farming is done, and photovoltaics, or PV, can be deployed at a much larger scale. However, use of PV panels on agriculture farmland requires sharing solar photons between food and energy that must be carefully optimized.”
Traditional agrivoltaic structures cast shadows, which decrease crop yield. Mitch Tuinstra is a Purdue University professor of plant breeding and genetics, the Wickersham Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Research and scientific director of the Institute for Plant Sciences in the College of Agriculture. He said traditional structures are incompatible with large-scale agriculture because they are mounted high to allow farm equipment to freely move around them.
“The increased height requires a deeper foundation for the structures, which dramatically increases the cost of the solar farms,” Tuinstra said. “Our modules are mounted much lower, comparable to traditional solar farms, which makes our system more affordable and decreases the time needed for a return on investment.”
The Purdue agrivoltaic structures use a dual, off-axis rotation system and sensors to optimize the amount of electricity generated and the amount of light that crops receive.
“The key idea is that when farm equipment needs to pass, the modules will rotate to form a near-vertical structure,” Tuinstra said. “At other times, the modules will track the sun as usual.”
“The system is designed with row crops in mind like corn, soybeans, wheat and rice,” Alam said. “The dimensions of these structures have been fine-tuned to allow sunlight, rain and shadows to reach plants as needed. They also withstand harsh weather conditions including heavy rain and strong wind.”
The next steps to bring these improved agrivoltaic structures to market include partnering with a solar energy developer.
“This is translational research. An industrial partnership or partnership with solar farm installation companies, preferably in Indiana, is the next step,” Tuinstra said.
Farming is a vocation, a calling that for generations has fed, clothed and fueled the world. As innovation continues to advance and supply chains become even more globalized, the role of the American farmer has never been more important to the future of our economy and our national security. Today we are joined by Indiana Farm Bureau’s executive director of administration, Megan Ritter, to examine serving rural communities and their role in advancing the future of our food system. She also talks about innovation and its connectivity to the farmer, the intersection of food security and national security and its ability to create a better, more politically stable world. What challenges and complexities do farming operations face on a daily basis? Megan dives into that challenging question and the opportunity for new innovation to address those hurdles in the future.
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Would it really be May in Indiana if we DIDN’T talk about milk? Each year, Indianapolis is flooded with race fans from around the globe to watch The Indianapolis 500 and its winning driver be presented with a cold glass of milk by an Indiana dairy farmer at Victory Circle.
The state is home to over 700 dairy farms and, together, provide a home for more than 174,000 dairy cows (generating more than 4.5 billion pounds of milk per year). Today we are joined by Jenni Browning, CEO of American Dairy Association of Indiana, to talk all things nutrition, consumer-focused innovation and the diversity of product and technology found on the state’s dairy farms. Jenni also gets into innovation on dairy farms as she sees it today, how it’s feeding growth to the industry and its potential for transformation in the future. Lastly, she talks the platform of Indiana dairy farmers, being an upfront feature and tradition for The Greatest Spectacle in racing a la The Indianapolis 500 and how dairy can and will continue for future generations.
To learn more about the tradition of dairy at The Indianapolis 500, click here.
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Eighteen teams ranging from high school students to entrepreneurs vying for $30,000 in the HungerTech Innovation Challenge
AgriNovus Indiana, an initiative to grow the state’s agbioscience economy, announced today that Elevance Health, Shipt, AT&T and TechPoint will support the 2023 HungerTech Innovation Challenge – a four-week accelerator to create tech-enabled businesses that connect food-insecure populations to for-profit and not-for-profit food networks.
Presented by Elevance Health, 18 teams are competing in this year’s challenge that will award the winning team $25,000 and the second-place team $5,000 to accelerate commercialization of their solution. The runner-up prize is co-sponsored by AT&T and TechPoint, a first for both organizations.
“Harnessing the power of innovation to transform how we connect food supply to food demand holds tremendous opportunity to serve those in need,” said Mitch Frazier, president and CEO of AgriNovus Indiana. “Thanks to the support of our sponsors, AgriNovus is able to not only inspire ideation but to provide critical capital to turn the best ideas into action.”
In its second year, the HungerTech Innovation Challenge has attracted innovators ranging from high school students to venture-backed companies with creating tech-enabled food access for hungry populations. Team leaders for the challenge include:
Festus Ajiboye – Indianapolis, Ind.
Emily Blyze – Indianapolis, Ind.
Khushboo Chandnani – Indianapolis, Ind.
Sanjukta Choudhary – Indianapolis, Ind.
Katherine Clayton – San Francisco, Cal.
Jim Conklin – South Bend, Ind.
Lisa Harman –Warsaw, Ind.
Riley Johnson – Fort Wayne, Ind.
Anusha Malla – Indianapolis, Ind.
Scott Massey – Evansville, Ind.
Manali Parab – Indianapolis, Ind.
Shreyas Patel – Indianapolis, Ind.
Ritu Harish Salian – Indianapolis, Ind.
Ami Sanghvi – Indianapolis, Ind.
Rohan Satya Isaac – Indianapolis, Ind.
Rijul Saxena – Indianapolis, Ind.
Sandeep Sirivuri – Fishers, Ind.
Sahith Uppala – Indianapolis, Ind.
“Having consistent access to nutritious food is an essential part of maintaining one’s health,” said Shantanu Agrawal, M.D., chief health officer at Elevance Health. “Programs like the HungerTech Innovation Challenge are helping create innovations that will better connect hungry households to healthy and accessible foods, which is a great step toward improving overall health outcomes and advancing equity for all.”
The HungerTech Innovation Challenge was informed by an AgriNovus study commissioned by the Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability at Purdue University. Tackling and Solving Food Insecurity with Private Sector Innovations identified the need for new technologies to drive connectivity between food access and populations experiencing food insecurity.
AgriNovus will announce the winners of the 2023 HungerTech Innovation Challenge in June. Learn more about AgriNovus Indiana’s work on combatting food insecurity at www.AgriNovusIndiana.com/HungerTech.
According to Capital Market’s database, Pitchbook, more than 100 agtech companies were acquired in 2022 and this year is on pace to top that total. The market isn’t far from historic levels, but the question remains: is 2023 the year that agtech consolidation accelerates? On the heels of their own acquisition, Intelinair CEO Tim Hassinger joins us to talk the agbioscience’s biggest hurdles, how those are driving innovation and introducing a new wave of talent to the sector. He also gets into Intelinair’s recent acquisition of Aker Technologies, the winner of AgriNovus’ 2022 Producer-Led Innovation Challenge and what they bring to the company’s technology platform. As agriculture moves through another cycle, what opportunities lie ahead for agtech and this new wave of innovation potentially being equally balanced between quality of product and farmer adoption rate.
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Cooperatives have long been an integral part of the production ag system and agricultural economy. Today that role remains and is rapidly evolving as precision agriculture, technology and new entrants like biologicals and biostimulants become increasingly important in the pursuit of farm profitability and yield. Today we are joined by Co-Alliance Chief Strategy Officer, Phil Brewer, to talk about the co-op’s rise to the 80-location powerhouse it is today, identifying innovations that hold promise for the farmer and keeping pace with the speed that innovation trickles into the agbioscience economy. He also talks about driving net farm income through data-driven insights, managing risk and the role of the organization in the future to ensure farmer success.
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Small businesses of 500 employees or fewer make up 99.9% of all U.S. businesses; and of the new jobs created between 1995 and 2020, small businesses accounted for nearly 2/3 (or 12.7 million). Our guest today is a journalist, an author and a bold visionary who sees the next chapter of America’s economy coming from what some may consider to be surprising places. Founder of Times of Entrepreneurship, Elizabeth MacBride, joins us to talk about her coverage of the Middle East, high finance and business paving the way for where she saw her greatest impact as a writer: covering a new wave of cities with emerging innovation ecosystems. She gets into commonly held misconceptions surrounding entrepreneurship, her passion for telling these stories on a national stage and the power of storytelling to create meaningful change. Elizabeth also talks about her recent visit to Indiana to cover small businesses and entrepreneurship and our exceptional (and compelling) strength in agbioscience.
How does Indianapolis compare to other cities? And what other cities are in that comparative? Elizabeth tells all. Learn more about her coverage of entrepreneurship. Visit timesofe.com.
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VERBIO will start producing bioethanol and biomethane in Indiana
VERBIO North America Holdings Corporation, a subsidiary of VERBIO Vereinigte BioEnergie AG, has acquired South Bend Ethanol, LLC. VERBIO North America announced yesterday the signing and closing of the purchase agreement with Mercuria Investments US, Inc. The plant has a current production capacity of 250.000 tons of ethanol per year.
South Bend, Indiana, will be the second production site for VERBIO in the USA after the successful commissioning of the biorefinery in Nevada, Iowa. VERBIO intends to convert the plant into another biorefinery with combined bioethanol-biomethane production based on the model their German plants use. The total investment planned for this will be approximately $230 million.
“We are excited about the opportunity to further expand with our innovative biorefinery technology and to start producing bioethanol and biomethane in Indiana,” comments Stefan Schreiber, Executive Board Member for North America of VERBIO AG. “The acquisition of South Bend Ethanol is another step in our growth strategy to expand our production capacities globally. The site offers optimal conditions for our biorefinery concept in terms of competitive feedstock sources as well as a suitable infrastructure for the global marketing of our products.”
Conversion to a VERBIO biorefinery by 2026
VERBIO plans to convert the ethanol plant in South Bend into a biorefinery modeled on VERBIO’s German plants over the next three years. Their concept enables the processing of different agricultural raw materials at one site, which results in economies of scale, more intensive raw material utilization and lower energy consumption. This significantly increases efficiency and sustainability and improves the greenhouse gas balance. VERBIO has already proven this at its sites in Schwedt/Oder (Brandenburg) and Zörbig (Saxony-Anhalt) with more than ten years of successful production. After the transformation, the production capacity of the new plant will be 250.000 tons of bioethanol and 850.000 MWh of biomethane annually.
The biomethane is injected into the regional natural gas grid and is available as a biofuel or renewable energy source for industrial applications. Following processing, high-quality liquid fertilizers and humus are returned to the fields, closing the sustainability cycle.
All current employees at the facility will be retained. In addition, the construction project will create a significant number of indirect jobs in the surrounding community and across the State of Indiana. VERBIO is already working on plans for a rapid start of construction in the coming months. The supply of biomethane for use in transportation and industry is scheduled to start in 2026.
The Managing Board of VERBIO AG most recently confirmed its course to invest more in the USA at the Annual General Meeting in February 2023.
“We currently see a strong desire in the USA to take the global lead in new environmental technologies. VERBIO had already identified the USA as an attractive market for its internationalization strategy in 2018, well before the IRA. However, the IRA fits our business model exactly and, with its investment and production support, acts as a boost for our development in North America. There is incredible momentum because the combination of government funding, low energy and raw material costs, well-developed infrastructure, long-term planning and reliability provides an ideal environment for investment. The new plant in Indiana opens up new perspectives and underlines our growth and internationalization strategy,” says Claus Sauter, CEO of VERBIO AG.
“Europe urgently needs to respond to the IRA if it still wants to play any role in modern technologies globally. As a German company, we have no choice but to invest even more in the USA and take advantage of the opportunities offered by the IRA. Europe is currently sleeping through the next big technology wave. Europe is sleeping through the future,” concludes Sauter.
New SP-1 Classic Foliar Channels RegenAphex Advantage
After two years of developmental work, DPH Biologicals™ announced today RegenAphex™, a new technology platform based on the regenerative power of a proprietary plant-based humus extract produced at the company’s Princeton, Illinois site, the largest plant-based composting facility in the United States.
RegenAphex provides growers with a regeneratively-produced biological solution, delivering readily available carbon and a consortium of microorganisms known to improve soil health, increase crop nutrient uptake and support plant health. The company’s flagship biofertilizer, TerraTrove™ SP-1 Classic™, was built on RegenAphex technology and is now being offered as a foliar application, a powerful and proven testament to the success of the formulation.
Driven by consumer demands, changing climates and dwindling natural resources, regenerative agriculture, a method of farming that focuses on regenerating soil and ecosystem health for better outcomes, is growing rapidly. The regenerative agriculture marketplace is projected to reach $24 billion in global revenue for 2030, growing at 14.4% CAGR, according to a recent market report.
Delivering a Sustainable Humus Extract Technology Platform for Broad Acre Production
RegenAphex will serve as DPH Bios’ foundation for novel solutions, revolutionizing how growers manage fertility and plant health while providing an environmentally friendly, domestically produced solution. Additionally, DPH Bio is making the RegenAphex platform available to enhance the performance of other microbial products in the market through third-party collaborations.
“What excites me the most about this dynamic technology is that it seamlessly fits into modern production practices, balancing performance, sustainability and scalability,” said Mick Messman President & CEO for DPH Bio. “We take a lot of pride in the fact that it is a renewable resource produced right here in the heartland, which allows us to mitigate the uncertainty and complexity of today’s global supply chain.”
RegenAphex’ humus extract formulation is similar but superior to humic acid, a well-known soil amendment. RegenAphex is a clean, light brown water extract of a renewable plant-based humified compost that delivers a consortium of micro-organisms that increase the microbial diversity in the soil. Additionally, it is a super food for the microbial community delivering 30 ppm of organic carbon readily available to support microbial life and plant growth.
SP-1 Classic Expands Foliar Options to Combat Abiotic Stress
Building off the RegenAphex news, DPH Bio is expanding the use of SP-1 Classic, introducing a new foliar application use pattern to help growers lessen the impact of abiotic stress on crops by adding SP-1 Classicto their spring and summer post-emergence spray practices. RegenAphex serves as the foundation for SP-1 Classic which also includes Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) and Green Algae.
SP-1 Classic is an industry-leading liquid biofertilizer, proven in soil-based applications to optimize soil and nutrient conditions for plant growth. Multiyear field trial results validate the performance of SP-1 extends beyond soil applications. When used as a post-emergence foliar during critical early growth stages, SP-1 Classic enhances the plant’s ability to tolerate abiotic stressors like heat, drought and salinity. In 2022, field trials showed a positive yield response on corn, soybeans, wheat, potatoes and specialty crops when applied as a foliar treatment.
Missouri grower Derek Davis increased his use of SP-1 Classic after noticing crops he had sprayed with SP-1 Classic performed better under drought conditions.
“We started out with a gallon per pass rate of SP-1. Now I’m doing two to three, depending on the crop and the timing. We just keep seeing increasing results and returns,” Davis said. Derek shaved $200,000 off his fertility budget using SP-1 Classic as both an in-furrow and foliar solution on his corn, soybean, wheat and alfalfa operation.
“With extreme weather becoming more common, growers are looking for better, more flexible ways to boost plant tolerance to potential stress factors,” said Joe Hanson, DPH Bio CCO and trusted seed, crop protection and biologicals expert for the past 25 years. Bad weather is the biggest yield-limiting factor on corn production, reducing yields by as much as 70 bushels an acre according to aUniversity of Illinois crop physiology report.
“Priming plants to grow is a proven insurance against seasonal abiotic stressors. But once crops are up, growers have a narrow window during an extremely busy time of year to add anything new to their management plan,” Hanson said. “SP-1 Classic solves that problem with a simple, affordable and easy application that helps protect crops against times of stress but doesn’t burden growers with another field pass or separate management practice.”
SP-1 Classic is OMRI-listed and can be tank-mixed with other commonly used post-emergence products, including glyphosate, and is recommended for inclusion with traditional spring and early summer weed-and-feed spray regimes.
SP-1 Classic is available now, through select ag retail locations or by visiting www.dphbio.com
Athian’s livestock carbon credit marketplace completes latest round of funding thanks to the investment by California Dairies, Inc. and DSM Venturing
Athian (athian.ai) announces the completion of their seed funding round with investments from two strategic partners: DSM Venturing, the corporate venture arm of Royal DSM, a global, purpose-led company in Health, Nutrition & Bioscience, and California Dairies, Inc. (CDI), the largest dairy farmer-owned cooperative in California and second largest in the United States. Athian, the world’s first carbon marketplace for the livestock sector, advances the global acceptance of its novel transactional carbon credit inset program with this investment from DSM Venturing and CDI, along with previous investors, Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE: ELAN), Tyson Ventures and Newtrient LLC.
This game-changing innovation provides livestock producers with economic incentives for on-farm sustainability practices, while helping improve global food system sustainability and reducing climate warming. “CDI’s membership has been leading the way in sustainable dairy farming investments, and we continue to move as fast as technology and on-farm economics allow,” said Simon Vander Woude, chairman of the board at CDI. “This is an opportunity to showcase that hard work while doubling down to drive innovation and further improve our environmental footprint, ensuring that our farms produce some of the most sustainable milk in the world, across all the various pillars of sustainability.”
“We are excited by CDI and DSM Venturing’s enthusiasm for our innovative carbon marketplace platform. The groundswell of support has been tremendous” said Paul Myer, CEO of Athian. “This announcement not only expedites our reach into international markets but also accelerates practical environmental solutions that give farmers new revenue streams and helps companies deliver on their sustainability commitments throughout the value chain.”
Athian’s carbon credit insetting platform will enable livestock farmers who implement sustainable practices the ability to earn revenue to fund those initiatives. Athian’s key mission is to help the beef and dairy value chains capture and claim carbon credits earned through sustainability efforts. Athian aggregates, validates, and certifies, greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, and monetizes those reductions through the sale of carbon credits which offer value to the supply chain as important carbon assets related to Scope 3 emissions.
“Global climate change requires all of us working together. And now, Athian can deliver on our goal of connecting the whole value chain,” said Myer. “By joining forces with investors like CDI, DSM Venturing and others throughout the livestock industry, we have a unique opportunity, with all the voices at the table, to support sustainability practice changes through carbon incentives. Together we can move the needle on climate change.”
In connection with these investments, Scott Horner, Regional Managing Director North America at DSM Venturing, and Darrin Montiero, Vice President of Sustainability at CDI, will join the Athian Board of Directors in an observer capacity.
