An industrial designer is testing an exciting new agricultural method, replacing standard rectangular fields with circular growing areas.
TrendWatching's Daily reported on this new method by Dutch designer and inventor, Floris Schoonderbeek, highlighting how Circle Farming's design can eliminate some of the pitfalls of rectangular fields, including the need for tractor tracks and the lack of space between for people and nature.
Schoonderbeek's method utilizes a rotating robotic arm situated in the center of a 30-meter (98-foot) circle. The arm moves slowly around the field and can have existing tools attached to it, from weeding or irrigation tools to farmers themselves. Special beds allow workers to lie comfortably while weeding or harvesting the crops below them.
The system also has technology integrated into it, monitoring crop health and offering advice. It could even help teach farmers new skills, making agricultural work more accessible to many.
The initiative aims to show how automation and innovation can be complementary to nature — using robotics and AI to create landscapes that can support biodiversity and nature, making space for insects and wildflowers to thrive between fields.
Circle Farming is also designed to be integrated near cities, with the potential to help connect urban dwellers to the origin of the food they eat and provide fresh, local produce in food deserts around the world.
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Aside from an improvement in the productivity of agriculture, the health of our ecosystems, and the ability to learn while comfortably farming, this technology can connect people back to the land — a hugely important act for sustainability.
"Agriculture actually determines how the landscape looks, and when I look at it, it doesn't seem healthy. When I drive through the landscapes now, I see rectangular blocks," said Schoonderbeek.
"Our fields are round, and between those circles, there's space for the rest of the landscape. That way, we can see that a new landscape can emerge in which farming, nature, and people are given space again."
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