LOCAL: Opportunity to view robot and meet executives at Indiana factory open-house on March 15
NATIONAL: Solinftec continues to revolutionize sustainable farm practices
INDIANA – March X, 2024 – Solinftec, a global leader in artificial intelligence solutions and sustainable agricultural practices, has announced that its Solix Sprayer Robot is now commercially available to farmers, cooperatives and ag-retailers, and will be on farms around the country this month. In addition to Solinftec’s existing Solix Scouting Robot, the newer Solix Sprayer is designed to detect and spray weeds.
This past December, in partnership with WHIN (Wabash Heartland Innovation Network) and Still Waters Manufacturing, Solinftec announced the expansion of its manufacturing capacity in the United States with the opening of its robotics plant in New Richmond, Indiana. This week, the facility will host an open-house event with government representatives, customers, partners and companies in the sector on March 15, 9am to 12pm ET.
The collaboration and efforts of the companies make robotic technology more accessible to American producers, leading to a significant reduction in herbicide use and promoting sustainable agriculture. "This partnership represents a significant milestone for the US agricultural industry, and it's gratifying to see two companies from our network bringing innovation to our region. Collaboration among all parties was crucial to the success of this project," says Johnny Park, CEO of WHIN.
The use of Solinftec solutions has already led to a reduction of up to 97% in herbicide volume on properties that piloted the Solix robot last year in the United States. The key differentiator is that, through the collaboration of the three companies, the solutions will be adapted to the reality of the Midwest.
"The collaboration and work in our new Indiana factory supports the development and innovation of agricultural technology in not only Indiana and the Midwest, but throughout the country,” shared Guilherme Guiné, Solinftec’s Chief of Operations for North America. "The new plant has a capacity to produce up to 800 units per year and by the end of 2024, American employees will represent 10% of Solinftec’s global workforce as we continue to generate jobs in the region," shared Guiné.
A leading innovator and pioneer in the AgTech space, and champion for sustainable farm practices, Solinftec has designed its scouting and sprayer robots to help producers reduce their chemical inputs and deliver a lower carbon footprint and environmental impact.
Commercially available beginning this month, the new Solix Sprayer robot provides autonomous and sustainable spot-spray applications on grower’s fields. The robot was piloted on select farms in the Midwest last year. Similar to the Solix Scouting robot, the spray robot is powered by four solar panels that control the drive system and the spray system while providing reports on crop populations, weed identification and densities, disease identification and thresholds, insect identification and thresholds, nutrient deficiency identification and densities, NDVI among other layers of maps for data analysis, and much more useful data to the grower virtually 24/7.
"Our open-house event is an opportunity to view our cutting-edge robots and share the success of this collaboration between Solinftec and WHIN," shared Leonardo Carvalho, director of Global Strategy at Solinftec. "We’re celebrating the success already achieved through the first units produced in New Richmond that are already operating in the American Corn Belt," says Carvalho.
The open-house event will take place on March 15, 9am-12pm ET at the Richmond factory location: 7450 County Rd 1125 N, New Richmond, IN 47967.
# # #
About Solinftec
Solinftec is a Brazilian company, a global leader in artificial intelligence and robotics for agribusiness. Founded in the city of Araçatuba (SP) in 2007 by Cuban automation engineers, agtech has more than 800 employees globally, 330 in the R&D area alone, as well as units in the United States, Colombia, Canada and China. Among the technological solutions offered by the company are the artificial intelligence platform ALICE AI and Solix Ag Robotics, a robot focused on large-scale food production in agribusiness. Solix: Solix (solinftec.com)
About Still Waters Manufacturing:
The American company was acquired in 2022 by Jake Church and his wife Kindra. The company has over 35 years of serving the industry, focusing on the production of components for industrial forklifts. The factory is located in the former Coal Creek School, near New Richmond, Indiana.
About WHIN:
WHIN is an innovative nonprofit organization devoted to making the 10-county Wabash Heartland region of north-central Indiana the global epicenter of digital agriculture and next-generation manufacturing empowered by smart IoT technology.
For more information, contact
Camila Gonzaga: [email protected]