A University of California, Berkeley professor stands at the front of the room, delivering her invited talk about the potential of genetic engineering. Her audience, full of organic farming advocates, listens uneasily.

Back in the good old days, farming was easy. Throw some seeds in the ground, keep it watered, pray to your preferred deity to spare your crops from pestilence and wait for harvest season.

Engineers and researchers from the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the University of Sydney have developed a mechanical weeding machine, that proves to be very effective in weed control in fallow.

If you've ever tried to ripen a piece of fruit by sticking it in a bag with a banana, you've harnessed the power of ethylene.

There has probably never been a time when food (at least in the developed world) has been safer. And yet there has probably never been a time when consumers in Europe are more concerned about what they eat and how it has been produced.

Since 2011, farmer Sean Stratman has grown kale, cauliflower, broccoli and squash in Carnation, Washington. Then, a few years ago, he added a new crop to his bounty: knowledge, using drones and the intelligent edge to get near-real-time information about issues like soil moisture and pests.