The Zillow App of Agricultural Regeneration

April 28, 2020 - Kamryn Romano and Caroline Brooks

We can check the price of a home from a mobile app, but what if that technology could be used to shop for agricultural land — and simultaneously improve environmental sustainability?

Bruno Basso, ecosystem scientist and professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Michigan State University is the co-founder and chief scientist of CiBO Technologies, an innovative land intelligence system described by Basso as “the Zillow of agriculture land and environmental sustainability.”

Basso and CiBO Technologies built a team to implement geospatial technology that has been developed and tested over 30 years into an app that identifies the value and environmental sustainability of a piece of land.

The technology allows farmers, policymakers, stakeholders or any curious person the ability to know how a single piece of land can be valued economically and the environmental impact it can generate, along with the risk and variability in productivity associated to its cultivation under different management and future climates.

“When it comes to land, there is no transparency at the moment,” Basso said.

If you were to buy a home or a car – a home or a car — one wouldn’t purchase without checking the basement or knowing how many miles are on the vehicle.

Using satellite imagery and crop modeling to evaluate the land productivity, stability and sustainability, Basso's technology helps prospective buyers make informed decisions about that parcel of land along with the possibility of knowing how that land will respond to changing climate, new genetic and management strategies to be more regenerative.

Read the full article at MSU Today.