Hectar, the school financed by Xavier Niel, wants to make agriculture more profitable, more attractive, "sexier" through technology. Others in France are already trying.
YVELINES, France - West of Paris, a century-old farmhouse in the heart of greenery has been transformed into a start-up campus. Here, coders learn to program a harvesting robot, young urbanites design vineyards and farms guided by artificial intelligence, and polish their pitches to investors.
In a nearby field, students inspect cows fitted with Fitbit-style collars (electronic watches) tracking their health, then head to a barn transformed into a modern open space (complete with cappuccino machine). There, hunched over their laptops, they study the most cost-effective farming techniques to reverse climate change through agriculture.
