COEUR D’ALENE, ID., November 26, 2019 — The people at HydroSide Systems believe in what they do. That belief has led to an amazing innovation and patent-pending system for the traveling irrigation niche in farming and ranching. Recently, HydroSide was recognized on the national stage by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) as a Semi-Finalist for the 2020 AFBF Ag Innovation of the Year Award.
“This is an amazing honor and blessing to be named as 1 of 10 teams in the entire US competing for this prestigious award on a national stage in January,” said Dana Mohr, CEO of HydroSide Systems. “We are going with the intent of winning it all because we truly believe that our technology will make a huge impact on farming by automating all forms of traveling irrigation. Regardless of the outcome, we are praising God for this opportunity and we will work hard to do Idaho and the Inland Northwest proud!”
The Farm Bureau Ag Innovation Challenge was the first national competition focused exclusively on rural entrepreneurs, and the competition continues to provide an opportunity for U.S. startups to showcase business innovations in food and agriculture. The Challenge is a national business competition and the American Farm Bureau Federation, in partnership with Farm Credit, awards $145,000 in startup funds to entrepreneurs who compete throughout the year, culminating at a live pitch competition at the AFBF Annual Convention. This year, the Annual Convention will be held in Austin, Texas from January 17-22, 2020 where HydroSide will compete with 9 other teams for the coveted top prize, AFBF Entrepreneur of the Year.
“These hard-working entrepreneurs have demonstrated their commitment to take on some of the biggest challenges in agriculture. Their innovation will help American farmers continue to grow healthy, affordable products for consumers,” said AFBF President Zippy Duvall. “It’s a pleasure to recognize and award these outstanding businesses to help them deliver solutions that will drive U.S. agriculture forward.”
Few innovations have been made to traveling irrigators in the last 40 years. Simply stated, HydroSide is reinventing traveling irrigation. HydroSide is doing this with its patent-pending hydroelectric drive and navigation system which automates traveling irrigators, such as wheel lines, traveling guns and traveling booms, among others. In addition to automating these systems, HydroSide is also introducing precision irrigation technology. Now, farmers can use their smartphone or computer to run their irrigation sets. The technology allows the farmer to acquire real-time data regarding their resource usage and savings, GPS positioning, and it allows them to plan their irrigation sets based on ideal watering patterns and depth of saturation.
