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Yoshifumi Kanao, president & CEO of welzo Inc. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Agriculture

Agri-horticultural player, welzo Inc, has established a wholly owned subsidiary, welzo Singapore PTE LTD, in Singapore, expanding into the Southeast Asian market

The company chose Singapore as it is a key hub for accessing ASEAN countries. This base will primarily serve marketing and business development activities across Southeast Asia, focusing on the development and execution of marketing strategies for Southeast Asia; import and export of agricultural products, feed ingredients and pet supplies; building local partnerships and supply chain optimisation, and recruitment and development of local talent.

Yoshifumi Kanao, president & CEO of welzo Inc, said, "Singapore is not just a gateway to Southeast Asia—it's a global hub where innovation and agriculture can converge. With this new subsidiary, we aim to deliver high-quality Japanese products to local markets while building sustainable partnerships rooted in mutual growth. This marks a crucial step in our journey toward global co-creation."

Huawei Cloud is developing applications that use AI for tasks such as crop monitoring. (Image source: Huawei Cloud)

Agriculture

Huawei Cloud, in collaboration with Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (MDES), hosted the Huawei Cloud Summit Thailand 2025, where the two parties jointly announced a strategic initiative to position Thailand as ASEAN’s leading AI hub.

While the summit highlighted the nation’s overall digital acceleration, a notable focus was placed on the growing application of AI and cloud technologies in agriculture.

As part of MDES’s “Cloud First” strategy, which aims to build an inclusive and opportunity-rich digital economy, Huawei Cloud is advancing smart agriculture initiatives that leverage artificial intelligence to enhance productivity, sustainability, and environmental stewardship in the farming sector.

Through partnerships with local stakeholders, Huawei Cloud is developing applications that use AI for tasks such as crop monitoring, pest prediction, and precision irrigation, which are essential tools for a country where agriculture plays a critical economic role.

Cloud and AI technologies not only boost production efficiency but also bring a positive impact on human life, natural environment, and sustainable development, explained Aka Dai, director of Huawei Cloud Marketing, during the summit. He pointed to ongoing efforts in smart agriculture as a core example of Huawei’s “Cloud for Good” initiative.

Huawei Cloud is strengthening its local collaborations in this field as part of a broader push that includes nature conservation, inclusive finance, and carbon reduction. The company’s initiatives already include paperless solutions for government departments, saving thousands of trees annually, and now extend to optimising agricultural operations to reduce water usage, cut emissions, and increase yields.

William Dong, president of Huawei Cloud Marketing, introduced several innovations to support this AI-driven transformation. These included the Pangu models, which are tailored for specific use cases, from steel manufacturing to weather forecasting, and are now being adapted to meet agricultural needs.

AI has become the most influential general-purpose technology in the industry, according to Dong, who noted Huawei Cloud’s shift from “Cloud-Native” to “AI-Native” infrastructure.

The summit also featured a demonstration of AI in action, where a humanoid robot and a human with a bionic hand performed collaborative tasks, showcasing the real-world potential of intelligent technology.

Having worked with over 1,000 customers and 500 partners in Thailand over the past seven years, Huawei Cloud is now focused on accelerating intelligent transformation in key industries. With smart agriculture as one of its emerging pillars, the company aims to support the sustainable growth of Thailand’s digital and environmental ambitions.

Representatives from CIRAD and GAR (3rd and 4th from left) sign an MoU to advance sustainable palm oil research at the Indonesia-France Business Forum 2025. (Image source: Golden Agri-Resources)

Food & Commodity

Integrated palm oil company Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) has entered into a new agreement with the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) to accelerate innovation in sustainable palm oil

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed in Jakarta, marks a renewed phase of collaboration, focused on addressing pressing challenges in the palm oil industry. This latest initiative builds upon a 25-year partnership between CIRAD and the SMART Research Institute (SMARTRI), GAR’s primary agricultural R&D facility.

Originally established in 1996, the collaboration between GAR and CIRAD has evolved through successive agreements covering sustainable production, environmental stewardship, and precision agriculture. Over the years, the partnership has resulted in nearly IDR550 billion (approx. US$33.78mn) in joint investments in research and development.

Science driving sustainability 

Together with WWF Indonesia, the partners also created the biennial International Conference on Oil Palm and the Environment (ICOPE). At the February 2025 edition, global researchers and early-career scientists shared new insights into topics such as biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation in the palm oil sector.

The partnership has supported major global research initiatives, including the Sustainable Palm Oil Production (SPOP) project backed by the French National Research Agency, and the International Oil Palm Genome Projects (OPGP) Consortium.

Through the renewed agreement, both organisations have committed to science-driven, practical solutions for enhancing sustainability in palm oil. Their collaboration will include research into plant performance modelling and simulations on climate change impacts, all aimed at supporting smallholder livelihoods amid increasing climate pressures.

“Our partnership with CIRAD brings together global scientific expertise with field research that addresses the realities of Indonesia’s palm oil landscape. It enables us to develop innovative, practical, and scalable solutions, with benefits not just for our plantations, but for independent smallholders across Indonesia,” explained The Biao Leng, president director at Sinar Mas Agribusiness and Food, GAR’s Indonesian subsidiary.

Beyond improving productivity, the renewed partnership will explore agroforestry models to enhance national food security, reduce emissions, and contribute to Indonesia’s broader sustainability goals.

“Our collaboration with GAR demonstrates how international partnerships can combine scientific rigour with practical results. It enables us to address key sustainability challenges such as climate resilience, land-use efficiency, and smallholder inclusion. This is a truly integrated approach to transforming the sector,” said Jean-Marc Roda, CIRAD regional director for Southeast Asia Island Countries.

African Farming

  • HSW ECO MATIC® 6ml _ 10ml (for injection, oral and pour-on application)

LightWeeding enables farming innovation

The LightWeeder is an agri-robot that can kill weeds using a unique concentrated light method. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Earth Rover, a UK based agri-robotics company and Agri-EPI Centre member, has developed the LightWeeder to solve key challenges faced by laser-based weeding systems

The LightWeeder is said to be the world’s first eye-safe, herbicide-free, carbon-neutral, commercially viable weeding system. The LightWeeding technology uses semiconductor LEDs to solve key technical, safety and commercialisation challenges faced by laser-based weeding systems.

The LightWeeder is part of CLAWS (Concentrated Light Autonomous Weeding and Scouting), an agri-robot that can kill weeds using a unique concentrated light method, and can also scout fields to obtain a complete data map of all crops after planting, showing the crops exact location, size, and any early signs of disease.

The main features of CLAWS are:

  • Weeding – chemical-free and inherently safer than laser weeding. No till and no crop damage and can be used in any conditions without compacting the soil.
  • Scouting – In-depth analysis of crops to allow better harvest predictions and increased yields.

The complete system is ultra-lightweight at 300kg, meaning it requires low amounts of energy to run, and is also claimed to be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than many of its competitors. The system currently runs on batteries and in future, solar panels therefore uses no fossil fuels and help farmers meet their net-zero targets.

With increasing types of chemical-resistant weeds, a significant downturn in availability of hand labour plus a shift in society towards more organic options, now more than ever there is a need to change the way we farm. A recent report by Rothamsted Research shows weeds pose an unprecedented threat to our food security and highlights the need to diversify weed control as an urgent priority.

As explained by John Taylor, farm director at Pollybell Organic Farm, “The key element here is that the LightWeeder not only makes chemical-free farming more effective but it also solves the huge issue farmers are facing today in terms of the huge loss in the labour force. Being able to weed fields autonomously means that food production doesn’t just grind to a halt.”

According to Earth Rover, LighWeeder is energy-efficient and no-till and does not cause damage to drip irrigation or crops. It is also not dependent on soil conditions and does not enable weeds to develop resistance. 

 

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Crops

Generative AI models support the agricultural industry in their small molecule discovery process. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Agriculture

Computational biology company, Evogene Ltd has developed a generative AI foundation model, version 1.0, for small molecule design, in collaboration with Google Cloud

The new model expands on Evogene's ChemPass AI by identifying novel small molecules that meet multiple complex product criteria.

Generative AI models support the agricultural industry in their small molecule discovery process by enabling the simultaneous consideration of multiple complex product requirements, all while creating truly novel molecular structures. This allows the industry to access strong, defensible IP portfolios.

Ofer Haviv, president and CEO of Evogene, said, "Completing our foundation model is a major milestone in our offering. It unlocks new frontiers for ChemPass AI, giving us the power to generate wholly novel molecules—ones that not only perform but also create new IP space. This is key to overcoming long-standing challenges in life-science R&D: from reducing late-stage failure in pharma to developing ag-chemicals that are effective, sustainable, and proprietary."

Boaz Maoz, managing director, Google Cloud Israel, said, "We're pleased to collaborate with Evogene's innovation in AI-powered molecule design. Their progress with ChemPass AI highlights the strength of pairing advanced AI infrastructure with deep scientific insight. We look forward to seeing the impact of this new model in drug discovery and agriculture."

 

The development will empower thousands of smallholder farmers. (Image source; Adobe Stock)

Yoshifumi Kanao, president & CEO of welzo Inc. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Livestock

Horizontal nozzle-pressurised spinning could be a huge boost to the global dairy farming industry. (Image source: UCL)

Cattle

Researchers have developed a new technique to extract tiny cellulose strands from cow dung and turn them into manufacturing-grade cellulose

A study published in The Journal of Cleaner Production, describes the potential of a new ‘pressurised spinning’ innovation that uses cow dung as a raw material to create cellulose materials more cheaply and cleanly than some current manufacturing methods. Cellulose is one of the world’s most commonly used manufacturing materials, and can be found in everything from cling film to surgical masks, paper products, textiles, foods and pharmaceuticals.  

Professor Edirisinghe, the senior author of the study, considered the possibility of extracting tiny fragments of cellulose present in cow manure and turning it into manufacturing-grade cellulose materials. He first used mild chemical reactions and homogenisation, which was successful in fragment extraction. However, the use of pressurised spinning technology to turn these fragments into fibres failed. 

However, upon trial and error, a new technique called horizontal nozzle-pressurised spinning, proved successful. This is an energy efficient process that doesn’t require the high voltages of other fibre production techniques such as electrospinning. This advancement is a prime example of circular economy and is the first time that manufacturing-grade cellulose has been derived from animal waste. 

Horizontal nozzle-pressurised spinning could be a huge boost to the global dairy farming industry, given the fact that animal waste management continues to be a growing problem globally. The research team is currently seeking opportunities to work with dairy farmers to take advantage of the technology and scale it up.

By installing additional PEM electrolysers, Hy2gen plans to upgrade the facility by the end of 2025. (Image source: Hy2gen)

Results from the study showed that SNPs found in the HNMT gene significantly increased carnosine levels in chickens. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Equipment

The R1 Single-Plot Research Combine by Alamco. (Image source: Alamco)

Equipment

The R1 Single-Plot Research Combine by Alamco is designed to provide quick harvest without damaging the seeds

This is made possible by its advanced rotary technology that allows optimisation of the harvest process and improve data accuracy.

Unlike conventional plot combines that rely on high-speed threshing cylinders, R1 utilises exclusive top-fed axial rotors. This innovative design gently pulls material into the threshing chamber, which is over eight feet long, enabling higher throughput and greater efficiency. Operating at lower RPMs (350-500), the R1's rotary technology allows for the early harvest of large green plants, tough stems, and high-foliage crops, giving researchers a longer harvest window for faster decision-making. The self-cleaning system ensures easier cleanout and more pure samples for more reliable seed research data.

Equipped with Cummins QSF 3.8L FT4 Diesel Engine and Poclain rear Torque King 4WD wheel motors and tandem electronically controlled hydraulics, it delivers superior performance in tough field conditions.

Monarch MK-V tractor demonstrating V2G through Borg Warner DCFC and Gridtractor CMS. (Image source: Gridtractor)

The platform is slated for launch later this year and focuses on both domestic and international markets. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Technology

Entomatic is highly versatile and can be used in horizontal and vertical row crops. (Image source: Biobest)

Machinery & Equipment

The Entomatic automated dispenser stands as a game changer for spider mite control, ensuring precise and uniform Phytoseiulus distribution across crops

Phytoseiulus persimilis, a specialised predatory mite, feeds exclusively on spider mites and is an essential and well-established component of biocontrol programmes. Entomatic is highly versatile and can be used in horizontal and vertical row crops. It has been widely adopted in high-tech protected vegetable crops, such as tomatoes, sweet peppers and cucumbers, as well as cut flowers and open-field strawberry production.

Beyond Phytoseiulus-System, Entomatic efficiently distributes other predatory mites, most beneficial insects, and Artemac supplementary predator feed in tomatoes. Its user-friendly, modular design allows for easy configuration across different glasshouse setups, whether mounted on existing carts, tractors, robotic sprayers, or custom driving platforms.

Sam Gui, market development manager for High Tech IPM at Biobest explained how Entomatic maximises effectiveness by smoothly and precisely releasing Phytoseiulus-System, at a controlled rate, over the head of the plants. “Aside from the increased precision, due to automatisation, Entomatic can significantly cut labour costs. Depending on the Entomatic model, we’ve seen labour costs for beneficial mite introduction cut by up to 90%.”

 

Among Bayer’s 11 sets of tanks, the measurement range varies from a maximum of 9 tons to a minimum of 4 tons. (Image source: Bayer)

AGRIMAX PROHARVEST thus stands as a technologically advanced and cost-effective solution for all operators in the farming industry. (Image source: BKT)

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The platform is slated for launch later this year and focuses on both domestic and international markets. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Monarch MK-V tractor demonstrating V2G through Borg Warner DCFC and Gridtractor CMS. (Image source: Gridtractor)

Fully automated cherry truss tomato harvesting robot 'Artemy.' (Image source: DENSO)

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The Axial-Flow 260 series offers the new ActiveTrac four-roller hydraulic suspended track system having a larger footprint. (Image source: Case IH)

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Latest news

Generative AI models support the agricultural industry in their small molecule discovery process. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

The development will empower thousands of smallholder farmers. (Image source; Adobe Stock)

The R1 Single-Plot Research Combine by Alamco. (Image source: Alamco)

Yoshifumi Kanao, president & CEO of welzo Inc. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Huawei Cloud is developing applications that use AI for tasks such as crop monitoring. (Image source: Huawei Cloud)

Representatives from CIRAD and GAR (3rd and 4th from left) sign an MoU to advance sustainable palm oil research at the Indonesia-France Business Forum 2025. (Image source: Golden Agri-Resources)

Researchers have developed the world’s first species-agnostic nanosensor that enables non-destructive, real-time monitoring of plants’ primary growth hormone: a form of auxin called indole-3-acetic acid

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