Month: January 2024

The tasty pork products that consumers love come from well-fed, healthy pigs.

On their way to market weight – about 250 pounds for the Berkshire hogs on the N.C. A&T University Farm – a pig can eat as many as six times a day, inducing feed costs that can add up for farmers.

If a traditional tractor is the most versatile tool on the farm, imagine that tool’s utility if it were a self-driving tractor with “smart” implements that could not only be programmed, but could adjust to field conditions in “real time.”

When it comes to horticulture, knowing what a plant is experiencing before it starts to show yellow leaves, droopy stems or a low yield can make all the difference in having a productive growing season.

As a crowd of legislators, dairy industry leaders, faculty, staff and Cooperative Extension personnel watched, a small, brown Jersey cow stepped up to be milked in the N.C. A&T University Dairy.

On farms in the future, drones will fly overhead checking soil conditions, sensors will measure plant health and livestock will eat on demand, monitored by equipment that reports on their physical condition. Programmed tractors will sweep up and down rows, dropping seeds, watering and fertilizing with complete precision as farmers monitor it all from their cell phones.