Since I have been appointed "oat expert", I better chime in here.
About a decade or so ago, I used to regularly meet with a few gentlemen that were in their 70-80's. They ate oatmeal every morning for breakfast, religiously, for various health benefits, including the high fiber.
So a few years ago, I started stocking the kitchen at my office up with the thick rolled oats from the bulk food section, plus cranberries and walnuts. So when I get to work, I can have a healthy breakfast. I just microwave mine.
I am watching another PCT hiking series on Youtube and the gal on there puts chia seed on her oatmeal. I am going to try that, chia seed is supposed to be super healthy. Yes, its not just for chia pets.
Some good news on the oat front.
Hälsa Foods, maker of the first and only 100% clean
oat milk yogurts, announces today that it is working with dairy farmers to offer the opportunity to grow organic oats as an alternative to dairy farming, and has assembled a coalition to support them with the conversion process.
The oat yogurt brand, founded by Helena Lumme and Mika Manninen, is using a Scandanavian method which reportedly results in cleaner, more nutritious and higher quality oat crops. Hälsa oats are currently grown in Scandinavia with a zero water footprint, and now the process will be brought to farms in North America.
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Oats are exploding internationally right now and are
emerging as the most popular dairy alternative, with +184% more restaurants adding
oat alternatives to their menus last year as consumers showed +146% more interest in them as a dairy alternative.
Hälsa states that it has assembled a coalition of Scandinavian organic farmers, researchers and environmental experts to support the conversion process, and will put together a guide book and a video that will serve as a blueprint for
other dairy farms on how to start growing premium oats.
The company explains that the oat is a resilient grain that also provide excellent soil erosion control and reduce the need for herbicides. Oats require much less water than other crops, while almonds, cashews or coconuts used for nut-based milks require excessive amounts of the planet’s fresh water resources.
https://vegconomist.com/companies-a...edium=email&utm_campaign=most-read-16-02-2020
This is the kind of innovation I love. This is a great use of technology that will improve productivity and drastically reduce pesticide use.
Using artificial intelligence, agricultural robots are on the rise
Slowly but surely, a spidery machine about the size of a golf cart swings an electrode over a tray of plants. Every few seconds there is a small puff of smoke as a weed keels over, having been zapped with a high voltage. The device doing the zapping is a prototype weeding robot developed by the Small Robot Company, a new firm operating out of an old munitions depot near Salisbury, in south-west Britain.
Such machines, called “agribots”, are appearing in many shapes and sizes from a variety of companies. Muddy tracks from other prototypes lead into the Small Robot Company’s workshop, where a row of 3d printers make bright orange components out of plastic. That makes parts easier to find should they fall off in a field, which is a sure sign that farmers are at work here, with roboticists and scientists.
Weed control is essential for improving crop yields, but it is getting increasingly difficult. Some weeds are becoming resistant to herbicides, which face stricter regulation and in some cases are being banned. On top of that, many consumers want organic produce. And labour shortages mean that repeatedly tilling the soil to disrupt weed growth using a mechanical hoe towed behind a tractor is costly, time consuming and not always practical.
Weeding is a chore that most farmers would happily hand to robots. But for a robot to do the job properly it must be able to distinguish a weed from what is being cultivated. That is becoming easier with advances in computer vision. Artificial-intelligence (ai) algorithms are getting better at classifying images. Some phone apps can now identify a plant from just a photo. Robots equipped with cameras will not only weed but automate other farming roles. Agribots, driverless tractors and other types of farm automation form an industry that is expected to grow at around 23% a year and to be worth more than $20bn by 2025, according to MarketsandMarkets, an American research firm.
Having spotted a weed, there are several ways to try to kill it. The Small Robot Company’s weeding agribot, called Dick, electrocutes them. The robot’s wheels work like an electrode to make contact with the ground while another electrode is moved to touch the plant. This makes a circuit through the plant and creates heat, effectively boiling the plant’s cells and killing it from stem to root instantly. It can take several thousand volts, although this is adjusted according to the type of weed. The remnants of the plant can then be left to naturally decompose into the soil.
https://www.economist.com/science-a...elligence-agricultural-robots-are-on-the-rise
