Farmers tribute to NHS seen from space
7th Apr 2020
Despite Covid-19, our food heroes continue to feed the nation. With agriculture a critical industry, key workers are working tirelessly to keep the nation fit and healthy. On World Health Day, set up to support nurses and midwives, a satellite used to support farm decision making came across more something a little different to usual.
Last week, Agrii agronomist Matthew Alford and farmer John Govier went to a field in Devon to mow a 360x130m ‘#NHS’ sign in the grass. Contour, a RHIZA Digital tool, captured the tribute using Planet’s optical satellite imagery
NDVI imagery of the #NHS tribute. Drone photo credit: Barnaby Newell . NDVI photo credit: Planet and AgSpace
RHIZA’s platform normally helps farmers manage soil health, warn of pests or diseases, and predict crop yield before harvest. It warmed all the team seeing the service pick up the recognition for all our healthcare workers on the front line. Matthew and John’s efforts have also been picked up by Sky News, Farmers Weekly, Farming UK and the BBC News.
ADDITIONAL
Mr Alford told Farmers Weekly: “I saw a couple of farmers doing similar things and thought we should do something to say thank you as well. South Molton has its own hospital and lots of farmers in the area have friends or family working for the NHS. “It is just a bit of goodwill for the guys in the NHS who are having a tough time. We all have close links, so it is our way of showing our appreciation.”
RHIZA have already agreed to make many of their services open to their customers at no charge, providing the industry’s highest resolution satellite imagery and Septoria pressure models to farmers and growers.
They would like to invite any farmers who feel they would benefit from this offer to get in touch with their local RHIZA team to find out how they can help them or contact them via their website.
Simon Beck, head of digital at Origin Enterprises said “Now is the time to adopt. Digital Agronomy will prove its value when it comes to remote sensing and remote farm management, as technology has advanced to help farmers understand more about field and crop performance than ever before and given us tools to manage these variations.”
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Press contact: Rachel Watling, rachel.watling@ag-space.com, +44 78155 94452
Notes to editors: AgSpace Ltd is the digital arm of Origin Enterprises plc, a focused Agri-Services Group, with a main focus to be the leading provider of value-added services, technologies and strategic inputs that support the delivery of sustainable and profitable food production solutions for primary producers. AgSpace deliver digital solutions to agri-businesses, providing crop growth performance, aggregation and big data analytics. Their digital agronomy tool ‘Contour’ is delivered by service provider RHIZA, and gives you access to the best data for smarter daily management of your crops. Users get unique satellite data, crop growth models, hyper local weather data and pest and disease models, allowing the creation of management zones and improved in field decision making. It’s proved to improve profitability and productivity.
Website: www.ag-space.com and www.rhizadigital.co.uk