Farmers around the world face a pressing problem: The equipment they use to till, plant, and harvest their fields is killing their margins. Studies have estimated that soil compaction can reduce yields by 20% to 60%.

Plowing can help, but it’s a laborious and expensive task that harms soil health in different ways. Muju Earth has developed an alternative, the Aeropod, that automatically aerates the soil without machinery or robotics. The startup says it can promote better soil health while cutting farmers’ tilling costs by half or more.

The device is “built like a seed, it sows like a seed, and it ships like a seed,” Ifeoluwa Afolayan, the company’s co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch. The device is about the size of a fingernail, and farmers drop it in the soil alongside their seeds using the same equipment. There’s no need to till the soil in advance.

After the Aeropod is exposed to a combination of temperature, pressure, and moisture, it bursts open, loosening the soil and creating small channels that let air, water, and roots move through it more easily.

Muju Earth — one of the 200 startups in this year’s Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco in October — has tested its devices in lab settings and is embarking on paid field trials this fall in the U.K. Nine farmers are participating, and the startup has more than 30 on a waitlist.

K. since onions are particularly sensitive to soil compaction, Afolayan said.

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