(PRWEB) August 28, 2015
Fresh from the first-ever Demo Day at the White House (https://www.whitehouse.gov/demo-day), Rogue Rovers is launching its “50 States of Farming” Kickstarter campaign to bring its FarmDogg rover to specialty and smaller farmers across the country.
Rogue Rovers is mashing up the concept of “crowdfunding” and “pay-it-forward” into one campaign called the 50 States of Farming. Rather than crowdfunding to purchase the latest gadget, Rogue Rovers’ campaign is focused on delivering a high tech rover called the FarmDogg to small farmers nationwide. “Our goal is to deliver a free FarmDogg to one small farmer in every state in the US” says Melissa Brandao, Rogue Rovers’ Founder and CEO. “We’ve hand-picked these farmers from across the country, each farmer has their own unique story to tell and Rogue Rovers is using a national Kickstarter campaign and other social media platforms to amplify their message to a broader base of supporters.”
In a world of diminishing resources, precision agriculture technologies have had outstanding results with reductions in water, pesticides and improved productivity. Significant advances in technology have benefited large-scale farming operations, but smaller specialty farmers have often been left behind because of the smaller size and high cost of capital. The FarmDogg provides an affordable platform to deliver precision solutions to the smaller specialty farmer. The FarmDogg is an electric rover and cloud-based platform that can replace dirty, dangerous and dumb gas powered machines on the farm with an clean, quiet and smart alternative.
Ginger Myers who runs Evermore Farm a small sheep and pig farm in Northern Maryland echoes this sentiment. “We are very intrigued with the idea of the FarmDogg. It's electric so it's quiet and won't disturb the animals and because it is also smart so we can use it to start logging data on our ewes directly from the field. That means we don’t have to mess with paper lists to record keep. Gaining access to this kind of technology would be difficult for us now, we would have to wait some years into the future, a crowdfunded FarmDogg would mean we can start right away.”
The 50 States of Farming participants range from vegetable farmers, to sheep herders, to beekeepers. The farmers involved are the small and specialty farmers producing the foods at your local farmers market or restaurant--they grow America’s best food yet many of them struggle to automate some of their most basic tasks due to lack of access to capital. Melissa Brandao adds, “This is our chance to put advanced technology in the hands of farmers that may otherwise have to wait years. We are looking to deliver the FarmDogg and let farmers “hack” them--find new and innovative ways to put them to work.” Rogue Rovers’ goal is to help farmers improve their farms which will ultimately benefit consumers with better access to great food.
Rob Cunningham of Coyote Creek Farm is a second generation farmer and with his staff operates the first commercial, certified organic, feed mill in Texas. Rob and the farm team make it their mission to help revitalize rural middle class farms by providing a market for the organic crops they produce and by teaching sustainable techniques on the farm. "It takes all of us being committed to bringing sustainably minded practices back to the farm, that will in turn ensure the health of our farms, and our farmer families, the FarmDogg fits perfectly into this approach to farming.”
Join in Rogue Rovers efforts to support local farmers and contribute to the 50 States of Farming campaign https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/roguerovers or you can pre- order your own FarmDogg at http://www.roguerovers.com/farmdogg
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Rogue Rovers is based in the beautiful Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon. The flagship product is the FarmDogg an all terrain rover designed for small scale farming. Rogue Rovers’ mission is to produce and deploy the smartest and most sustainable vehicles for small-scale applications worldwide.
http://www.roguerovers.com
https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/roguerovers