ClimateMinder targets U.S. ag sector with energy-saving tech

Anaheim, Calif.-based ClimateMinder said today it is launching its smart wireless technology for the U.S. agriculture industry, which offers remote monitoring and control of crops.

Although the technology's concept was founded in America, the company has been operating in Turkey under the name Kodalfa for the past two years.

Its new U.S. focus includes a partnership with Los Angeles-area software-engineering firm Partners 1993, which is taking a minority stake in ClimateMinder through cash and software development services to expand the system's mobile components. Financial details were not disclosed.

ClimateMinder said its technology allows farmers abilities such as yielding higher quality agricultural products, saving water and realizing efficiency and energy savings.

"ClimateMinder puts growers in control of the environmental and climate variables that affect the ultimate success of their production," said the company’s CEO Bulut Ersavas, in a news release. "By monitoring and controlling to measured conditions, ClimateMinder can quickly alert growers to conditions that threaten their crops, such as extremes in temperature or moisture, and the need to take corrective action.”

The system is delivered through digital sensors, nodes and mobile data network components developed with technology leaders Intel and Ericsson.

The sensor network deployed in the field can be battery or solar powered. The monitored information can be transmitted wirelessly to mobile phones, computers or control systems.

ClimateMinder faces competition in the sector from companies such as Pune-based Ossian Agro Automation, which developed technology that provides farmers with remote access to irrigation systems, often reducing the time farmers have to travel to check power supplies and turn pumps on or off.

Ossian Agro's application works with a modem to let farmers check availability of power to the irrigation systems and then to turn pumps off or on remotely using the phone and an access code (see Indian startups develop energy-saving mobile phone tech).

And other companies are developing similar smart controllers for the agriculture industry, but they may not be as water-efficient as claimed, according to new research out of Texas A&M University (see Study debunks claims of smart irrigation controllers). 

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