PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM 103 explore solutions—to create an opportunity for small, local farmers that’s scalable and sustainable.” That meant coming up with equipment that’s affordable and easily adapted to different uses. His partner in that pursuit is Katie Bradford, the CEO of Rotate8, the company she co-founded with Daniel to develop a solarpowered farm automation suite. On my visit, Katie pointed out key features on the farming rover, from the optional seat under a canopy of solar panels—since it’s autonomous, it doesn’t need a driver—to the variety of tools that can be attached to the sturdy frame. It's like a walk-behind tractor, only you can ride it or send it out solo to do defined tasks, she says. Batteries are optional, since they are costly. “A lot of tech companies are making equipment to do one thing, like weed strawberries or pick tomatoes,” Katie says. “It’s geared toward monoculture.” Their utilitarian rover, on the other hand, is designed to be endlessly adaptable and runs on open-source software. You can raise it for taller crops, widen it to fit your farm’s furrows and attach all kinds of equipment to its base. Katie says they’ve put a lot of work into making sure the rover can keep rolling in all kinds of conditions, like muddy fields, steep slopes and loose gravel. The solutions they’ve come up with include installing wider tires, adjusting the weight so it’s lower on the platform and using intelligent algorithms for slip detection. “Our rover can go where tractors can't. Our large tractors get stuck in the mud in the rainy season, but the muchlighter rover is able to navigate a variety of terrain,” Katie says. ABOVE (clockwise from left): Curious cows; Twisted Farms grows redwood seedlings and plants them on the property; the old farmhouse. munities, the health of the planet and the quality of the food they produce, it’s really hard to make them work on a scale that can feed the world’s population. The solution, as Daniel sees it: “Either everyone goes to live on a farm again, or you use technology.” So while Twisted Fields sells vegetables and rainbow-hued eggs at farmers markets, it’s also a testing ground for innovative farm tech. Daniel sees some big flaws in a lot of agriculture technology—it’s too expensive or it’s designed as a solution to problems that farmers don’t actually have. “Farmers don’t want something engineerexecuted by someone who’s never farmed before,” he says. “I bought the farm to understand what the real problems are and
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