When California, U.S.A was faceing one of the driest years in history due to a drought UC Santa Barbara alumnus Oliver Jerphagon (founder and now CEO) started his company AgMonitor, in the year 2013, to tackle these problems with a mission to contribute to solutions for water and energy efficiency.The company offers three products which particularly specialise in technology. A pump monitor that detects leaks and provides assistance to farmers to keep a track of their water usage, an irrigation advisor that improves crop yielding by reducing both their water and energy costs and lastly the ranch monitor that helps farms to manage solar investment and grow the ROI by reducing the cost of energy.
The productive products of AgMonitor
The smart leak detector or the pump monitor is a software that helps to recognise unusual ways and manners in farmers’ irrigation systems via the energy data collection which escorts to the early detection of leaks. The pump monitor turns on smart power metres into water metres to manage ground-water usage. It saves both money, water, energy and crops. The leak detection software uses electrical signatures of the pump to detect leaks. However, the farmers need not to install a new sensor as the energy works with utilities through the green button initiative to leverage the data from the smart metres. Moreover, the products are good for the consumers and one of the vital causes for fighting climate change.
The first prototype was developed during a Capstone project. However, the idea of using the green button data to reduce consumption was developed in a meeting with The Institute for Energy Efficiency.
AgMinotor’s pump monitor has also beaten over 400 companies and secured the ‘Cleantech Open 2013 National Prize’ for accelerating technology to solve environmental issues.
The Crop monitor or the Irrigation advisor
The crop-monitor or the farming decision-support software developed by AgMonitor improves crop production efficiency and profit margins.
It does not use or require any installation of hardware instead it uses a combination of data from aerial imagery, weather energy, water energy and then delivers text messages to the farmers and updates them if any sort of problem is detected. Moreover, it also has the ability to download water records. They provide 80% of the value of precision agriculture at 20% of the cost of the other solutions. And help growers or farmers to identify how to optimise farming operations quickly. The tool is best used for small, medium size and large farms.
The Ranch Monitor
The ranch monitor helps in saving energy bills and optimising solar investment. It manages the energy costs across metres(solar generators, buildings, pumps). Consequently, AgMonitor developed a simple solution to tackle the real issues in agriculture.
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