Norfolk Co-op beams into the field;

摘要

The Norfolk Co-operative hopes to further agricultural techniques for its members by offering them a piece of space-age technology. The decision to buy into the Global Positioning System (GPS) was made over one year ago, says Allan Hays, coop generalmanager. The Norfolk Coop is far ahead of local competitors by offering this service, and "we have no intention of stopping," he said. The GPS used by the co-op is the 'Vision System,' manufactured by Rockwell Agricultural Systems, which relies on 24 orbiting Rockwell satellites. With time rented from the U.S. Department of National Defence, the satellites provide a constant latitude, longitude, and altitude feed to earth. Once applied to profiling a field, these data provide a map accurate to within one metre for the first few years, and up to three metres many years later.