Agricultural Robotics, Precision Agriculture, or Smart Farming are also known as Automated Agriculture. This type of agriculture makes use of the advanced technological innovations of the modern era. An AgTech entity may use some of the following tools such as – Robots, Sensors, Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Drones, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Biotechnology, Vertical Farming, Automation, Irrigation, Remote Monitoring, Smart Greenhouses, and many more. These technological tools used in agriculture are beneficial to farmers in sustainably maintaining, operating, monitoring, and controlling the efficiency, precision, and profitability of how they grow and harvest their crops.
Automated Agriculture can combat many environmental challenges and help reduce the overall detrimental impacts that negatively affect the ecosystem and biodiversity. Automation can decrease the use and need for human labor and can efficiently and seamlessly improve operations and processes. It is cost-effective and a good investment by farmers which would help provide good, healthy, and improved yield in quality and quantity.
Many businesses, organizations, startup programs, and social enterprises adopt initiatives and strategies to be sustainable in their works and efforts in today’s world. Moving towards a bright future where everyone can live together harmoniously, safely, comfortably, and healthily, on Earth. Many technological innovations have been created for many reasons and purposes as solutions in combatting many challenges, and they are used today to improve our daily lives and routines for the better. One such AgTech innovation that has been created to help farmers manage and efficiently improve their fields is ‘Rock-Picking’.
Rock-picking is a process, practice, and strategy by farmers to remove rocks and large stones from the ground’s surface or deep underground in agricultural fields. This helps in better planting, cultivating, and harvesting crops in smoother and unobstructed fields. Rock-picking by physical human labor can be quite a tedious and nerve-racking job, from being bent over in fields and physically breaking down and lifting rocks. This can be quite hazardous and hence the use of automated agriculture helps tremendously. Therefore in this article, we will talk about one such company – TerraClear, founded and led by CEO – Brent Frei. TerraClear aims to provide end-to-end Rock-Picking solutions that would help farmers with their rock problems.
About Co-Founder and CEO of TerraClear – Brent Frei:
The Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at TerraClear is Brent Frei. The founder holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts and Engineering from Dartmouth College, after which he soon started his career working in several positions and roles in various reputable companies, such as – Design Engineer at Motorola and Programmer Analyst at Microsoft. After this, Brent was inspired to begin his entrepreneurial journey of finding and building his own companies and businesses from the ground up.
Hence Brent founded and led as CEO at Onyx Software, Executive Vice President at Intellectual Ventures, Founder at HarvestWest Investments LLC, Founder and Board Member at Smartsheet, and finally founded and became the Chief Executive Officer at TerraPlay in the year 2017. Having amassed full knowledge and learning about Farms, Brent set out to sustainably create and help farmers solve their problems in rock-picking through the integration of technology and agriculture.
About TerraClear:
TerraClear’s journey started in the year 2017 when its founder and CEO – Brent Frei recognized farmers struggling and having difficulties in maintaining and managing their fields due to the presence of large rocks and stones. Therefore, Brent came up with the idea to provide an end-to-end solution that requires the integration of technology and agriculture so that rock-picking can be made easy and efficient with smart farming practices.
“Picking rock is hard work. TerraClear makes it easy.”
The company was established in The United States of America and has its headquarters located at Bellevue, in Washington. Along with providing end-to-end solutions in rock-picking for farmers, TerraClear also uses technological tools such as – Machine Vision, Aerial Sensing, Advanced Robotics, and High-Accuracy GPS in their rock-picking innovations and services.
“Rock-picking is solved by an automated agricultural implementation that clears rocks out of fields to enable today’s farmers to focus on high-value production and management activities.” – TerraClear.
TerraClear’s technologies use scans and sensors that provide the exact details through Rock Maps available and accessible through phones and tablets, in identifying the precise locations of the rocks and stones. This helps the TerraClear team in locating and using their Rock Picker machines to get the job done. Being recognized as a Leader in Ag Innovation, TerraClear won the Davidson Prize in 2023 from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. Geek Wire and Idaho Technology Council have also recognized TerraClear for their efforts in sustainability and technological innovations in agricultural practices.