Ranchbot\u2019s sensors use satellite technology to monitor tank levels, trends and operation, and customers can check data on their phones or computers in real time. In the last few years, the company has expanded its products and capabilities to what customers said was important, including being able to remotely turn pumps on or off.<\/p>\n
Water is top of mind for many Texans as the state is trying to avoid a looming crisis driven by a sizzling economy and mass migration. <\/p>\n
Business Briefing<\/p>\n
By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n Last year, lawmakers and voters passed historic funding<\/a> for infrastructure, and officials are putting together an updated 50-year plan.<\/a> And while North Texas is typically wetter than other parts of the state, recent maps show drought conditions<\/a> in several areas including South and West Texas \u2014 and even counties bordering Oklahoma.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n For Ranchbot CEO and co-founder Andrew Coppin, it\u2019s about helping ranchers be more efficient, but also about helping them collect information.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need data,\u201d Coppin said. \u201cYou can go ask any rancher how much of anything they\u2019ve got: how many cows, how much gas, how much feed, and they\u2019ll tell you everything. Ask them how much water they\u2019ve got and they\u2019ll answer enough or not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Considering a cow can drink an average of 38 gallons of water a day and there are tens of millions of cows in America, Coppin said the industry is using billions of gallons of water a day to grow milk and beef.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re talking about the No. 1 input into the business and no one really knows or can quantify exactly what the number is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A \u2018history of ranching\u2019 Andrew Coppin, co-founder and CEO of Ranchbot Monitoring Solutions, sits at a conference table at the company\u2019s Fort Worth Headquarters on Feb. 17, 2026.<\/p>\n Angela Piazza \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n Before spending 25 years in corporate finance traveling the world, and working in places like New York and Hong Kong, Coppin grew up spending time on his dad\u2019s ranching and farming operations in Australia. <\/p>\n He said he remembers watching John Wayne and old western movies depicting everything happening between Fort Worth and Kingsville.<\/p>\n \u201cThe history of ranching \u2014 all the heritage and culture \u2014 is here,\u201d Coppin said, sitting in his Fort Worth office that overlooks the city skyline and Trinity River. \u201cThat\u2019s really important because I\u2019m a rancher now technologist and it\u2019s critical to me that we respect the culture of ranching whilst we help it evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n He said ranchers can be resistant to change, but it\u2019s ultimately necessary in order to stay competitive. <\/p>\n \u201cEvery business on the planet is making better informed decisions based on data,\u201d Coppin said. \u201cRanching and farming should be no different but if you don\u2019t have the information how can you make better decisions? You can still overlay ranch intuition but you can\u2019t make it with no data.\u201d<\/p>\n Coppin said there are \u201cinnovators are early adopters\u201d already using Ranchbot, but he hopes the product becomes more mainstream in the next 2-3 years. Producers are looking at factors like cost of labor combined with the time and material costs of driving around to check wells or troughs \u2014 areas where Ranchbot might be able to lend an assist.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s entry-level products start at about $600, and increase to roughly $1,600. There\u2019s also communication cost that averages out to about $1 a day to operate. <\/p>\n Cattle drink from a trough at A&M McGregor Research Center on Jan. 21, 2026, in McGregor. A Ranchbot water management system automatically controls the level of water. <\/p>\n Angela Piazza \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n When choosing Fort Worth for Ranchbot\u2019s U.S. headquarters, Coppin said accessibility to travel was important, since the company is caring for ranches from Montana to Florida.<\/p>\n But more importantly, he said, he wanted to be close to all of the universities across Texas that are \u201cteaching the ranchers of tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe reality is they\u2019re all here,\u201d Coppin said. \u201cI realized the importance of and criticality of universities in the whole evolution of innovation and ecosystem. They all have a really, really big influence and are a benchmark of where innovation comes from.\u201d <\/p>\n \u2018Texas and beyond\u2019<\/p>\n Texas A&M University\u2019s AgriLife announced a collaboration with Ranchbot<\/a> in December to promote and develop innovative satellite-connected agricultural monitoring systems.<\/p>\n \u201cThe collaboration aims to develop technologies that improve water, livestock and land management outcomes for producers in Texas and beyond,\u201d officials wrote in the announcement. \u201cThe agreement outlines shared goals of research, teaching and extension activities that show the benefits of using remote infrastructure monitoring and data-driven insights in modern ranching and agricultural production systems.\u201d<\/p>\n Texas A&M\u2019s AgriLife\u2019s McGregor Research Station<\/a>, about 115 miles south of Dallas-Fort Worth, is more than 6,300 acres. <\/p>\n The property runs about 1,000 breeding female cows and a few dozen herd bulls, a feed yard facility and individual feed intake facility. Staff also farms about 1,500 acres of row crop, like corn and sorghum sudan, and small grains, like wheat and oats.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are very unique in size and scope from what we\u2019re able to do from a research standpoint and also from a \u2018One Health\u2019 standpoint,\u201d Ryon Walker, operations manager of the center, said. \u201cWe have the capabilities of doing projects that start from the ground all the way to the consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n Walker, who has been working on the station in McGregor for more than four years, said staff previously was able to monitor water, but had to be on site. Now, they can pull up water levels for troughs on their phones.<\/p>\n He said being able to monitor water remotely has been helpful to operations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not West Texas but we\u2019re large enough where it does take time and effort to go and check [the troughs].\u201d<\/p>\n Blair Fannin, communications and media relations manager with Texas A&M AgriLife, said the research team\u2019s goal is to help ranchers and farmers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in this to enhance the productivity and profitability of ranchers and efficiently utilize and natural resources and water,\u201d Fannin said. \u201cWe\u2019re always looking for ways to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n Cattle drink from a trough at A&M McGregor Research Center, a beef cattle research facility, on Jan. 21, 2026, in McGregor. A Ranchbot water management system automatically controls the level of water. <\/p>\n Angela Piazza \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n In the last decade or so, Ranchbot\u2019s operations expanded from just Coppin and his co-founder Craig Hendricks to 100 employees. About 30 of those are in the U.S. and Coppin said he hopes to double that amount this year, mostly in Fort Worth but throughout the country.<\/p>\n \u201cI get out of bed everyday for our customers,\u201d Coppin said. \u201cIt\u2019s great to build a business but the bigger reward for me is that we\u2019re delivering for people that really never get a very good deal. They don\u2019t get a lot of things run their way so when I know we give them time and money and peace of mind … it\u2019s an insane level of satisfaction in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Right now, the technology is on about 12,000 ranches combined between the U.S. and Australia, Coppin said, but he hopes to not only get on more ranches but to make generational impact.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m living in a world where I think I\u2019m building technology for my ranchers\u2019 kids\u2019 kids,\u201d Coppin said.<\/p>\n This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.<\/p>\n Readers disagree with column saying water issue is solved, defend a protester, criticize The Associated Press and agree with a columnist about choosing candidates wisely.<\/p>\n Breakthrough agreement with Mexico will be a lifeline to the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH \u2014 While more industries incorporate artificial intelligence and new technologies into their daily tasks, a local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2327,116,411,412,19582,27,260,29,28,410],"class_list":["post-179707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-environment","tag-fort-worth","tag-future-of-north-texas","tag-future-of-north-texas-energy-environment","tag-local-companies","tag-texas","tag-texas-am-aggies","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Q4APBVI3N5FJ7E2C3A2YJXRYOQ.JPG\")
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<\/a>Letters to the Editor \u2014 Water issues, protests, TEA, The Associated Press, candidates<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Trump administration is delivering water to Americans in need <\/a><\/p>\n