GRAND FARM
solve, it’s also environmental concerns. The concern of chemicals and GMOs have been well reported in the media. However, the truth is that without the increase in chemicals and genetically modified organisms, there wouldn’t be enough food to feed the population. Batcheller believes that there will be a push to increase the yields and productivity with mechanization. “There’s a growing concern across the world of what affect the use of chemicals will have on the resulting food products and how they make it into the human ecosystem,” said Batcheller. “As a result of that, machines of the future are going to be very, very careful about the amount and location of chemical application. In the old days, they used to come with beet crop workers who came out to the field and hoed the beets. There will be, in the future, extremely high speed machines that will go down these roads and mechanically weed the crops. That will really take the pressure off chemical application.” Over the rest of this magazine, we’ll be looking at how Grand Farm is hoping to solve these problems and how Grand Farm will affect our state. This push toward ag tech will put North Dakota on the same scale as some of the biggest thinkers in the world.
A great way of looking at Grand Farm is to look at other technology companies working to solve global problems. One of Elon Musk’s, the eccentric founder of Tesla, companies is SpaceX. They are working on a project called Starlink that hopes to launch 12,000 satellites into orbit around the Earth that will provide internet to everywhere on the globe. “If you think telephones changed the world, what happens when every place on this planet – like the savanna in Africa – will have access to very inexpensive gigabit data?” asked Batcheller. So, if you have to look back, to see where we’re going, doesn’t it make sense that the region that helped shape agriculture continues to lead the way? “In my mind, the time is right for this type of stuff,” said Carroll. “There’s a great convergence that’s taking place. There’s a clear understanding of what the future looks like and I think it’s time for our region and North Dakota to be deeply engaged and involved in that process and be on the leading edge of it. We have the natural resources available. We have the talent. We have organizations. We have it in our DNA. This is a great opportunity for us to lead the world around it.”