Innovative Cover-crop Opportunity, Verification and Economy stimulating technology for underserved farmers using Robotics (iCOVER)

Notice: _On April 14, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the cancellation of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities (PCSC). The USDA plans to reform the program into the Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) initiative. Contact your local USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) for more information on how to apply to the AMP initiative. _

The iCOVER project plans to scale up robotic cover crop planting and verification of soil carbon through innovative radiological robotic sensing technologies, creating markets for climate-smart products for minority underserved farmers growing specialty crops and animal products. The project plans to use standard and well-established soil sampling and remote sensing methods to measure and quantify the effect of cover crops on carbon sequestration, and then develop and scale up an innovative in-situ robotic system capable of soil carbon measurements at high-throughput using a contact-free radiological method for fast, accurate and automated soil organic carbon quantification.

The project is planned to also focus on market building for underserved producers through an existing resource and partnerships with grocery chains and restaurants.