Soil may be the most vital of all ecosystems. It’s also the least understood.
Our mission is to enhance our understanding of soil, advancing scientific knowledge and empowering farmers to sustain both soil health and crop production.
Soil structure affects root penetration, water availability to plants and soil aeration
Soil structure affects root penetration, water availability to plants and soil aeration
Soil structure affects root penetration, water availability to plants and soil aeration
The Program
The Program
Earth Rover Program is a not-for-profit organisation developing new, low-cost technologies for “seeing” into the soil.
In greatly reducing the cost of soil assessment while greatly enhancing its effectiveness, we aim to enable farmers to shrink both their economic outlay and their environmental impacts. Through novel applications of a well-established technology - seismology - we want to help them achieve what we see as the holy grail of agriculture: high yields with low impacts.
At the same time, we believe our approach will augment the work of soil scientists, accelerating our collective understanding of what soil is and how it functions.
The Program
Earth Rover Program is a not-for-profit organisation developing new, low-cost technologies for “seeing” into the soil.
In greatly reducing the cost of soil assessment while greatly enhancing its effectiveness, we aim to enable farmers to shrink both their economic outlay and their environmental impacts. Through novel applications of a well-established technology - seismology - we want to help them achieve what we see as the holy grail of agriculture: high yields with low impacts.
At the same time, we believe our approach will augment the work of soil scientists, accelerating our collective understanding of what soil is and how it functions.
Feeding the Future
Feeding the Future
Agriculture has achieved what many once believed was impossible.
Sixty years ago, when the population stood at just over 3 billion, there were widespread predictions of mass starvation. Today, farming feeds 8 billion people, and there is less hunger now than then.
However, this marvel has come at great environmental cost, and it’s not easy to see how it can be sustained. We believe that a cost-effective means of measuring and monitoring soil health is a crucial step towards developing a new agriculture.
Feeding the Future
Agriculture has achieved what many once believed was impossible.
Sixty years ago, when the population stood at just over 3 billion, there were widespread predictions of mass starvation. Today, farming feeds 8 billion people, and there is less hunger now than then.
However, this marvel has come at great environmental cost, and it’s not easy to see how it can be sustained. We believe that a cost-effective means of measuring and monitoring soil health is a crucial step towards developing a new agriculture.
More than 75% of the world’s soils are classed as “substantially degraded”
More than 75% of the world’s soils are classed as “substantially degraded”
More than 75% of the world’s soils are classed as “substantially degraded”
We need to improve our knowledge of the soil, we need to see
We need to improve our knowledge of the soil, we need to see
beneath
our feet
Partly because we know so little, we treat this vital resource like dirt, degrading it so rapidly that we threaten our own survival.
Pioneering Soil Health Assessment
Pioneering Soil Health Assessment
For this and other reasons, it’s essential that we develop cheap, easy and scalable ways to measure and monitor soil health.
For this and other reasons, it’s essential that we develop cheap, easy and scalable ways to measure and monitor soil health.
The key potential breakthrough enabled by the Earth Rover Program is the development of a spatially explicit, cheap and immediate means of measuring and monitoring soil health.
We hope to be able to “see” soil structure directly, without the need to break the ground. If our program works as intended, our suite of technologies could play a pivotal role in preventing one of humanity’s greatest crises.
Pioneering Soil Health Assessment
For this and other reasons, it’s essential that we develop cheap, easy and scalable ways to measure and monitor soil health.
The key potential breakthrough enabled by the Earth Rover Program is the development of a spatially explicit, cheap and immediate means of measuring and monitoring soil health.
We hope to be able to “see” soil structure directly, without the need to break the ground. If our program works as intended, our suite of technologies could play a pivotal role in preventing one of humanity’s greatest crises.
