Data generated by farm equipment and technology such as field mapping and yield and input monitoring systems can help farmers boost profits.
That issue was the focus of a lot of discussion at both the Agri Innovation Forum and the Agricultural Excellence Conference Nov. 19-21.
“Data. Jeez, something you haven’t heard about,” Agri-Trend founder Rob Saik joked at the Agri Innovation Forum as he pitched his company’s data system to venture capitalists. His pitch followed similar presentations by other hopeful Big Data providers.
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Seven floors beneath the Agri Innovation Forum, the Agricultural Excellence Conference was also hearing plenty about the promise that some see farmers gaining from Big Data.
Scott Ostermann of Enns Brothers said data is being produced by farm equipment, technology and crop growing condition monitoring. The information from these machines, which is what is called Big Data, can also be combined for better farm management.
“If you can tie those three things together with an overarching data strategy, I think you’ll … be in a position to cut your cost of production or increase production at the end of the day and make a more profitable farm,” said Ostermann, whose company sells John Deere equipment.
Farmers can also remotely access and monitor grain bins, drying equipment and grain movement systems, and that data can now be combined and compared with numbers from other nearby farms and regions to see how a particular farm is doing compared to norms.
Entrepreneurs and farming visionaries see huge potential for creating “smart farming” through the integration of all these different systems, combined with analysis and the ability to respond to findings.
It could create great wealth for entrepreneurs who get the integration right and manage to convince farmers to use their systems. It’s also what was inspiring the plethora of talk and pitches at the Agri Innovation Forum.
“Variable rate everything is coming our way,” said Saik, who was asking for $12 million to commercialize Agri-Trend’s expanded Agri-Data subsidiary. “Farmers are going to need to manage this information in some way. They’re going to need it so it’s useable.”
Conservis Corp. chief executive officer Pat Christie said tying all the data together is challenging but will be more important than just collecting data if advanced production and financial management is going to occur.
“The commercialization of these technologies into production agriculture, I would say, is more difficult than the technology,” said Christie.
“All of these data systems have made their life more difficult. What we’re doing is bringing it all together.”
