Getting Down in the Dirt

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BetterSoil Alliance aims to provide practical solutions for California’s drought-stricken almond industry

By Douglas J. Guth

With an ongoing drought threatening the future of California’s $6 billion almond industry, Yara International is spearheading a plan to improve soil health and water productivity, giving a boost to farmers whose livelihoods depend on the crop.

In pursuit of more sustainable farming practices, Yara launched the BetterSoil Alliance last October alongside agriculture tech company Heliae Ag. Through the effort, sustainability-focused solutions are being put into practice in 3,000 acres of California’s San Joaquin Valley, home of the nation’s largest almond growers. Overarching goals include a decreased carbon footprint of almond production as well as long-term viability for the industry.

According to estimations by the U.S. Drought Monitor, over 97% of the Golden State is experiencing “severe drought” conditions, with the most extreme impacts suffered by the food-producing regions of California’s Central Valley. Water scarcity, drought and rising temperatures have combined to prevent almond growers—not to mention farmers of all kinds—from properly maintaining their crops.

“There’s no doubt that this is a challenging situation for the almond industry,” says Devin Clarke, Almond Crop Manager at Yara. “We’ve seen an increase in orchard removal, and farmers who don’t have the resources to continue farming even with individual orchards at maximum production capacity.”

Restricted by a limited water supply, some California growers are seeing poor crop results, from nut shrivel, yield loss, to various physical imperfections that change the way they market their product. Increased costs in fertilizer and chemical inputs—together with logistical bottlenecks at shipping ports—has left farmers with excess supply and an attendant drop in crop prices.

These ongoing issues spurred Yara to take action with Heliae as a partner on the soil biology side, says Clarke.

The alliance reflects Yara’s holistic strategy in developing a “nature-positive food system,” encompassing the company’s expertise around enhancing crops and soil health while reducing larger impacts on the environment.

Yara’s Incubator Farm in Modesto is a test bed for this work, utilizing 80 total acres of almonds and walnuts. The almonds program focuses on comprehensive nutrition management and overall return on investment resulting in double-digit improvements around yield, water productivity and nitrogen use efficiency

Production, profitability and sustainability are principles of the alliance as well, notes Clarke. To meet those goals, about 100 California farmers have access to crop nutrition and soil management solutions produced by program partners—a low carbon footprint calcium nitrate fertilizer from Yara and Heliae’s PhycoTerra soil microbial food. Together, these products can drive almond yield and quality, while also improving soil health.

“In working with Heliae, we understood there’s an opportunity to enhance the structure and resiliency of soil,” Clarke says. “It’s a natural fit because of the aspirations of both companies around practical changes to improve soil health.”

A unique solution in the field

The new crop season kicked off in February, meaning it will be months until officials can determine the program’s full impact on this year’s nut harvest. However, independent third-party trials outside the alliance have shown a crop-per-drop improvement in water productivity when utilizing the calcium nitrate and PhycoTerra products in tandem.

Alliance leaders have also tasked new technology partners—PhyTech, Bountiful, and Ceres—with providing data points to build out a digital platform that supports aggregation, analysis, and visualization of program results. Upon comparing metrics like tree moisture stress in treated and untreated orchards, growers can more easily identify lasting solutions. Bringing in tech-focused partners further helps the alliance answer critical questions for farmers uncertain about supporting the cause, says Vice President of Yara North America Debbie Watts. Real-time access to combined data sets facilitates accelerated decision making opportunities for participating growers.

“We have this unique solution, but how do we know what’s happening in the field?” says Watts. “The platform is getting us tangible results on tree health, plus information on in-season production. Growers can include irrigation scheduling into the platform, and input what products they’re using and when.”

NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) imagery from Ceres allows farmers to assess their crop canopies along with individual plant vigor. Participants meeting certain percentage increases in water productivity will receive up to $5,000 at the end of the two-year program.

“The focus right now is on high-value crops that go into food production, because we know these crops have significant decarbonization goals that companies need to hit,” says Watts.

Expanding the alliance’s footprint will be a focus in the months and years ahead. The program’s full reach is forecasted at 50,000 acres, a figure that would cover a wide range of soil types and site conditions, says Yara almond expert Clarke.

“There’s been a bit of reluctance at first from growers, because soil health and sustainability are ambiguous terms that vary in their definitions,” Clarke says. “With crop input prices going up, farmers are just trying to stick with what they know. But growers are convinced by the alliance’s overall intent around nitrogen use efficiency and water usage.”

Education around the alliance centers on its potential value beyond increased yield. Watts stresses a community aspect that brings together farmers, advisors and food companies on the most pressing challenges facing the marketplace.

“Bandwidth is an issue in talking to everyone we need to talk to,” says Watts. “Also, the concept around soil health is an educational process. We’re talking about the impact soil can have when you take measures to improve it.”

A Profitable Tool With a Side of Sustainability

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Yara’s Adapt-N software is a field-proven innovation for measuring nitrogen uptake in corn.

By Douglas J. Guth

PrecisionAg Alliance Contributor

Precision agriculture is sustainable agriculture, particularly when harnessing the high-tech tools currently transforming that ideal into reality, says Yara International Digital Sales and Business Development Advisor Bret Shaw.

To that end, Yara is boldly guiding precision into the hotly competitive agtech sector. Via the multinational chemical company’s Adapt-N software, farmers now have a field-proven innovation that actively monitors nitrogen uptake in corn. Through its precise measurement capabilities, the solution recommends nitrogen use efficiency rates to ensure maximum return on investment.

cornfield

“Adapt-N is unique in the sense that it brings both profitability and sustainability into the marketplace through nitrogen-use efficiency,” says Shaw. “Yara is going through a digital transformation, which is bringing new and improved precision tools to the market.”

Developed at Cornell University, the technology was initially commercialized by agricultural field modeling company Agronomic Technology Corp (ATC). Yara acquired ATC in 2017 with an eye on new nitrogen management solutions for farmers, agricultural retailers and technology firms.

Adapt¬-N combines soil, weather and field specific data with meticulous crop modeling and field management. Yara, a Norwegian chemical producer dealing in fertilizers, animal nutrition and industrial biologicals, views the technology as a means for detailed fertilizer treatments that avoid environment-damaging nitrogen losses, such as those that occur from nitrogen leaching.

“We like to say Adapt-N was science-created, field-tested and grower-approved,” Shaw says. “This model is not a flash in the pan – it’s been around for a long time. This is a tool that has created its own baseline of nitrogen management. We’ve got hundreds of thousands of acres per season running through this system, and millions of acres over the span of its lifetime.”

The right technology for the right time

Though Yara caters to multiple markets and a varied grower portfolio, for now the company is offering its Adapt-N technology to North American-based corn producers only. Hyper-focusing on a niche market will help scale up the technology for use in additional crops and geographies, remarks Shaw. Although Adapt-N is focused on corn, other crops such as wheat are actively being explored and will someday be available for nitrogen modeling as well.

Adapt-N’s web-based system and integrations into popular farm management information systems gives operators complete control in how they configure individual fields. Growers simply plug in vital data like variable yield zones, while key details such as soil type, slope and weather are already factored in by the software.

Shaw says, “You can utilize previous nitrogen and manure applications, or enhance efficiency products. It goes through the whole gamut of anything that integrates into the nitrogen equation. The tool then feeds 13 different models that work together to create a nitrogen recommendation you can then take to your field. We say it’s a nitrogen recommendation ‘when you need it, where you need it.’”

Recommendations are created every 24 hours, meaning farmers can let the software run by itself over an entire season. Although Yara has a full suite of nitrogen containing products, Adapt-N does not tout any particular product to use for nitrogen. That decision is left to the producer.

Adapt-N instead provides a nutrient recommendation based on nitrogen deficit, giving farmers freedom on what product they will ultimately employ. Shaw says the company is a committed partner of the 4R nutrient stewardship program, promoting fertilizer use through the framework of “the right source, right rate, right time and right place.”

“Adapt-N is a profitable tool with a side of sustainability—that’s the way it’s always been put into the market,” says Shaw. “When you optimize the use of nitrogen, you’re reducing the amount of loss going into the watershed or into the air. As you get more precise with those four Rs, you’re ensuring that nitrogen is being utilized by the plant in the most efficient way possible.

“The opportunities are endless when it comes to any crop that uses nitrogen—we don’t see any change from that,” Shaw says. “The four Rs are scalable, meaning you can get more specific with the management practices of each one. Adapt-N allows us to manage nitrogen in season, or pre-season, based off the information actively happening given the field specific conditions.”

Shaw has been working to integrate with other farming software systems, bolstered by a technology poised to change the industry’s nitrogen management practices now and into the future.

“My goal is to make Adapt-N the traditional nitrogen management practice—to take those growers from where they are now and help them to understand their nitrogen better, ultimately increasing their profitability through that process.” Shaw says. “At the end of the day whenever they get a nitrogen recommendation, our goal is to have it coming from the Adapt-N model.”

Preparing for an Autonomous Future

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Agtegra harnesses Raven’s OMNiPOWER technology as driverless equipment becomes reality

By Doug Guth

PrecisionAg Alliance Contributor

Mainstream agriculture may conjure images of a farmer-piloted tractor trundling among the cornstalks as the first light of sunrise illuminates the plain. While hands-on farming remains part of the American fabric, the move to precision technology and automation continues to grow.

GPS-guided applications, automatic adjustable spray systems, and automated steering are among the new technologies the industry is learning to love. Full-service agricultural cooperative Agtegra recently embraced such bleeding-edge innovation through adoption of Raven’s OMNiPOWER system.

The cooperative is utilizing Raven’s driverless system for its own processes, along with a portion of its 6,300 member-growers in North and South Dakota. Using the innovation, Agtegra hopes to streamline operations through a high-tech platform that transforms existing equipment – whether a spreader, sprayer or spinner – into an autonomous machine.

“We’re hoping for more automation and technology that would allow us to not replace our workforce, but offset it and specialize it, and utilize that to expand our services,” says Kaleb Bowman, director of agronomy operations at Agtegra.

In the field, OMNiPOWER is interchangeable among multiple machines and controlled via tablet by an operator. The platform can also send driverless equipment on autonomous tasks, ideally servicing more acres and giving growers the option to automate processes through connected workflow.

“You can file-share without having to pass a jump drive back and forth between drivers,” says Bowman. “And you can visualize your acres rather than having paper copies that you have to find an FSA map for. Raven has the ability to visualize those work orders and filter them based on crop and product. It makes you more efficient in the office before it gets to the applicator, so our applicators can be efficient as possible going from field to field.”

Agtegra officials are excited to harness a system allowing our operators to command, supervise and monitor equipment anywhere in the field, or even from another machine. OMNiPOWER lets operators plan path alterations to satisfy changing field conditions, with short- and long-range sensors detecting obstacles that could damage equipment.

However, enthusiasm around new technology still requires buy¬-in on the grower side, notes Agtegra director of technology services Brent Wiesenburger.

“ We need to prove to our member owners that this technology is as accurate or more accurate than what we currently offer today,” Wiesenburger says. “That’s education that we as retailers will need to consider to help make autonomy widely adopted. The more our technology team can be involved in the implementation for our needs, the more we can assist our producers to help them with their needs as well”

Wide-ranging benefits

Agtegra implemented OMNiPOWER in early November, in the time since determining exactly how the platform can be a value-add to farmers. Although driverless technology may not be of immediate importance, growers must start preparing for an at least partially autonomous future.

Bowman says, “It’s going to be about working with another machine in the field. Currently, it’s a cabless design where you have to transport (the machine) via detached trailer, get it to another field, and then click on the runs you want it to make. It’s going to have to work in tandem with another piece of application equipment in the field. It will take a knowledgeable applicator to monitor and set that up.”

Growers can skill up current employees on the cutting-edge platform, saving on labor costs, says Wiesenburger. Agtegra itself is using Raven’s Slingshot application for nearly 200 pieces of equipment that tend about 3.5 million acres annually.

Industry-wide labor shortages – combined with expanding farm operations – has left growers little choice but to consider automation, says Ben Voss, Raven’s director of sales for North America and Australia.

“Everyone believes that without some automation and autonomy, we won’t be able to grow the crops at the levels we have been,” says Voss. “We’re running out of workers, and farms need to cover more acres and introduce people into the workforce who don’t have natural farming backgrounds.”

Paul Bruns, business development manager at Raven, says some operations start with lower levels of automation – like autosteering – before investing further in the technology.

“Where autonomy is really going to start is with those mundane jobs, like pulling a land roller across a field, or tasks where there’s little thinking involved,” says Bruns. “Those mundane tasks are going to get tackled first, because there’s not highly valuable agronomic decisions that need to be made.”

Wiesenburger doesn’t expect his customer base to adopt all aspects of OMNiPOWER immediately. Growers desiring a hands-on farming experience won’t have to give up their tractor or sprayer seat, as the technology is years away from being perfected. In the early-going, clients may simply have an applicator in the field, with a piece of equipment connected to another human-operated machine.

“Our customers will adapt to this technology the same way we are adapting to it, and will slowly incorporate autonomy into their fleets as well,” Wiesenburger says. “That producer who likes working the land is still going to play a major role in the execution of farming activities for quite a few years. It’ll be a ways down the road before this farming system is 100% autonomous.”

Agtegra agronomy director Bowman admits some reluctance upon first learning about OMNiPOWER, a viewpoint that rapidly changed when understanding the innovation’s wide-ranging benefits.

“There’s less skepticism working with Raven, because they won’t put forward a product that hasn’t been thought through,” says Bowman. “We then went into the mindset of how are we going to utilize this technology? What are the benefits it will provide, not only to us as a company, but to our producer base as well?”

As autonomous agriculture continues to be fine-tuned, growers and retailers alike must make room in their operational domain for this technology, says Voss of Raven.

“I’m working here because I believe it’s going to change agriculture,” Voss says. “We’re facing an apex in the industry which we’ve never faced before. The only way that we’re going to maintain productivity is through advancements in automation.”

About the PrecisionAg Alliance

PrecisionAg® Alliance, administered by Meister Media Worldwide in cooperation with its Alliance Partners – topflight agricultural organizations committed to advancing modern crop production agriculture through wider use of technologies and data-driven solutions. At its core, the PrecisionAg Alliance’s mission is to help move the needle to more widespread use of digital technologies though the agricultural distribution and food chain.

A ‘Smart’ System for Future-Forward Farmers

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NEVONEX links machinery and workflows through new digital services to increase yields, save time and reduce costs.

By Doug Guth

PrecisionAg Alliance Contributor

When NEVONEX founder Micha Muenzenmay talks to growers about utilizing technology to help run their enterprises, he often hears the same story. While farmers are open to high-tech investment, the wealth of individual options makes choosing a system somewhat intimidating.

“It’s a little like a smartphone – there are so many coming out, and if you wait for a little longer, then a better one comes out,” says Muenzenmay, who developed the NEVONEX digital ecosystem under the umbrella of Germany-headquartered engineering and technology firm Bosch. “The question is, is there a multi-functional ‘Swiss Army knife’ in which I can decide on what tools I put in? From the grower side, you say ‘All right, I should invest my money in a tool, so what digital services are on the platform?”’

NEVONEX powered by Bosch styles itself as a joint partner solution for “smart” digital agriculture. As an independent, manufacturer-agnostic platform, the system links machinery and workflows through software applications to increase yields, save time and reduce costs.

Farmers select individual packages of digital services, while resource or service suppliers along the retail chain add their own functions and tools to the online infrastructure, allowing end users to more easily automate complicated machinery and work processes.

“Retailers know their growers’ pains and they know their market,” says Muenzenmay. “I encourage retailers to align with ecosystems, and on these ecosystems produce content that makes a difference to the growers.”

A collaborative technology

Once a NEVONEX-enabled control unit is installed, the Digital Service can run directly on connected manufacturer’s agricultural machines. Integrating the unit into electronic architecture facilitates automation and thorough documentation of work processes.

Muenzenmay says, “Once the function is there, the back end is connected. Everything is about collaboration, because we learned that many of our partners require help in marketing and making a business model based on digital services. Usually, they come out of the traditional industry of seeds, fertilizer, crop protection, or machines, and now they’re in the digital space of services. In this space, the value proposition needs to be worked out for the grower, because the grower wants to know what’s in it for them and why they should use it.”

Muenzenmay again compares this dilemma to smartphone functionality, where browsing through applications leads to questions about what actual benefits they deliver. In the agtech space, growers need similar convincing on the value proposition of digital adoption.

Luckily, NEVONEX partners have come on board to ease the technological transition for farmers and suppliers alike. These important players provide a suite of online offerings, from machinery interfaces to compatible sensors to NEVONEX-enabled control units and installation services. For example, AGCO joined the partner network earlier this year as a continuation of their objectives to make data management easier for farmers, ultimately unlocking more value for their operations. NEVONEX enables AGCO’s client growers to deploy the technology’s enhanced functions on AGCO farm equipment.

Taking data from machine-fitted sensors gives growers the ability to adjust, for instance, their seed and fertilizer distribution. Farmers can also run several machine-based digital services simultaneously – thanks to automatic data transfer, users no longer need flash drives to store information. When the system is utilized offline, data can be updated in the farmyard via Wi-Fi.

“When you invest in an open ecosystem like NEVONEX, you are future-proofing your organization,” says Maximilian Treiber, NEVONEX research lead from the Technical University of Munich. “It doesn’t matter what kind of machinery fleet you have, the technology with its architecture and functionality has already taken care of you, because you’ll be able to use all the digital services that come to this platform in the future.”

Nor do adopters need to worry about security, as meticulous safety standards protect data from unauthorized access. What’s more, agricultural businesses can develop a “smart” equipment fleet that benefits from the smooth interaction between connected devices.

An increasingly tech-reliant industry will require the type of inventive freedom NEVONEX provides – what Muenzenmay calls a “democratization” for growers.

“The farmer has the ability to make a free choice in the stuff that he consumes,” Muenzenmay says. “Again, like in smartphones, whether you use WhatsApp or WeChat or whatever, it’s just a tap away from you as a user. It’s you that makes the decision, and you can change from one service to another. This is what we believe is the value of NEVONEX as an enabler technology.”

Jeremy Wilson: Recognizing the Value of Connected Solutions

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As EFC Systems works to change the farmgate conversation, empowering growers and ag retailers with integrated tools to drive success.

As powerful digital agronomy solutions continue to make aggregating, documenting, and analyzing data easier than ever, one roadblock continues to thwart the agriculture industry’s forward progress: Convincing growers and retailers that the juice is worth the squeeze.

Today’s precision agriculture issues look a little different. The technological snafus of seasons past are mostly resolved. Files open, programs work, data gets collected. Tech problems have transformed into human ones, and innovative solutions are only as good as the people who commit to using them. Employing these solutions has also become the bare minimum. Users must make the effort to do things right—even when the tasks seem tedious.

Despite the promise of custom recommendations and the ability to make smarter decisions, not everyone is onboard. Jeremy Wilson, Senior VP Product Evangelist for EFC Systems and a farmer himself, believes three things need to happen in order for ag retailers and growers to start taking data driven decision making and comprehensive software solutions seriously.

“The first one is either having government regulation such that they make us do it or having a financial reward big enough for it to be a no-brainer,” he says. “The second is proving the efficiencies to growers and retailers by making connections between them, so that they both see what’s out there and what can be planned in advance. The third is figuring out what is needed for product procurement for the retailer, or for the grower, improving the profitability per acre.”

But if today’s growers and retailers struggle to see the value of documenting things correctly without regulatory intervention, they’re even less likely to do the work when it requires entering the same information into multiple systems. Having one app that monitors soil moisture, another that collects yield data, and a third that tracks product inventory requires a level of organization and consistency that is hard to maintain when the season is short and time is money. Comprehensive tools offer a potential solution.

Planning for Profitability in the Post-COVID Era
The current atmosphere is primed to be a driving force for adopting integrated tools that improve planning. If the high cost of input prices remain, Wilson says, it could leave a lot of growers battling shrinking margins next year.

“If we look at the cost of phosphates and nitrogen complexes, and even at product availability, that should drive us more than ever to be using tools and integration, as well as encouraging us to start planning earlier than we’ve ever done,” he says. “Yes, we have some pretty high commodities prices right now, but some of these numbers that are floating around for input prices and what they could be for 2022 tell me that there’s going to need to be some proper planning and preparation to be able to lock in profitability in 2022. That’s an incredible opportunity.”

The right plan is an opportunity for growers to minimize the impact of the rising input costs. Retailers have an opportunity to make important changes, too. Helping growers get the best possible position on the products they need for next year, is one way to build trust and improve the customer-supplier relationship. With both sides invested in the same outcome, growers and retailers can employ streamlined solutions to work together more efficiently.

“When you have a planning tool that is connected to an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system, that system is going to be populated with current product prices for the products that are in your inventory today,” Wilson says. “So, when I go to make a plan for a fertilizer application, those prices are populated in real time. The retailer isn’t speculating. They understand product inventories and know what’s available to sell. A connected solution allows for efficiencies, but it also allows the retailer to be more educated about what the products and prices are.”

The Importance of Everything-in-One-Place Solutions
With pricing and inventory information readily available, growers can experiment with potential changes to their application schedules or nutrition programs. This type of system has the advantage of showing growers how these changes will impact the overall price and plan before they pull the trigger.

“With the planning tool and ERP connected together, you have a complete ecosystem,” Wilson says. “You have the ability to take an application plan and use the logistics tool to dispatch the equipment for that application. At the same time, you’ve connected the machine to the system, so that when the application data comes back, you’re not running to two or three or four different pieces of software to complete one task.”

EFC Systems offers two solutions that provide these insights. Merchant Ag™ is an E.R.P designed to address the unique aspects for agriculture retailers spanning agronomy, grain, energy, feed, management insights, and digital engagement. FieldAlytics™ is a comprehensive digital agronomy solution to help manage your agronomy operations. Both options boast a number of essential tools all in one place to drive efficiencies.

Given the state of the industry’s labor woes, these types of platforms have become particularly useful. No one has time to learn a wide range of systems. Everything-in-one-place solutions ensure a realistic amount of training. Wilson is familiar with the impacts too-much software can have on productivity—and a person’s motivation to actually capture and document important data.

“When I started in this industry, we’d run seven pieces of software to do what we’re doing right now in one piece of software,” he says. “Do you know how much training is involved in that? Instead, let’s minimize the amount of people that we need to touch this data in order to make decisions. Let’s work with that grower and be as efficient as we possibly can. We can train employees on one or two pieces of software versus 14 or 15, only to lose that person to the competitor who will pay more instead of having to train someone new. So, there’s a human resource benefit, but ultimately, integrated systems drive efficiency.”

A comprehensive software platform integrated into the other tools within an ag retailer’s ecosystem drives operational efficiency. These new efficiencies enable ag retailers to better serve growers by strengthening the relationships they have spent years to build. At the same time these tools provide planning capabilities, minimizing risk, and maximizing profitability for both the grower and the retailer.

You Get What You Pay For — And, Without Care, Could Pay for What You Give

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By Brandon Wipf
South Dakota Soy Grower and ASA Director, Offers Advice on Ag Data

Brandon WipfIt’s been said many times: “If the product is free, YOU are the product.”  

Years ago when television was first broadcast into people’s homes over the air, it was a novelty for many reasons. The range of entertainment options available without having to leave the couch was so good, people changed their entire lives around it. TV dinners were invented so that you didn’t miss a single moment.   

More interesting in my view: the cost. Free. Television was broadcast to everyone—all you had to do was tune your set to the correct channel. How could the TV networks afford to pay actors a king’s ransom and put on grand productions when we were all watching them for free?  Simply put, the television programming wasn’t the product. We were.  

Companies paid the networks for the opportunity to present their products to American eyeballs. Their hope was to influence enough people to buy their wares that they would cover the cost of the advertisements and then some. It must have worked pretty well because—even though I have been describing the situation in the past tense—it’s all still happening today, especially online. 

Today’s web advertisers have a huge advantage over their “Mad Men” ancestors. By using data gathered from our home or business address, internet habits, purchase history and more, advertisers can home in on a specific audience that they feel will yield a higher rate of success. It’s a big win for businesses that don’t have to waste resources on “infertile soil,” so to speak. It is also a big win for customers who aren’t bombarded with ads that are not relevant to them. If I must sit through a 30-second ad, my preference would be for that time to not be completely wasted but rather focus on something in which I am interested.  

This advantage makes the information that tech companies like Facebook and Alphabet (Google) have about each one of us quite valuable. How valuable? $Trillions. They have the means to deliver specific content and advertisements to exactly the audience that will be the most receptive. When used properly, the use of data is incredibly effective. Unfortunately, we don’t always know who has access to that data or understand how our data will be used. 

Armed with the knowledge that our data have value, we must recognize that we are primarily responsible for controlling what those data include and who can use it. While the companies collecting your data and the firms using it to reach you may not wish you harm, we should remember that ultimately, their interest is in making money. How we fit into the process is and should be up to us. 

This is why it is so important that all of us in agriculture be aware of the mountains of data that we are creating each and every growing season. Every pass that we make in the field generates several layers of data. The apps or services that we use to manage everything from agronomy to finances to weather forecasts—these interactions create opportunities for companies to gain insight into our farms, the type of seeds and inputs we use, and the thought processes of the people who manage them. This information helps the companies we work with improve their products, but it also helps them sell more of these products back to us—and it raises questions about how “confidential” our confidential business information actually is. 

 How then should we, as farmers, react?  While most of us don’t want to go live off the grid with no technology, we aren’t too keen on being completely open books either. It is incumbent upon all of us to understand the details of each firm we work with and how they handle the data that we create.  

 When considering adoption of a new farm tool, each of us must weigh the service that we receive against what we are giving for it, be it money or information. Sharing some data is okay within your own comfort level, but just be aware and realize what you are allowing in doing so. There are many products and services that are well worth giving up some amount of data. For example, billions of people worldwide don’t mind giving up data to Facebook in exchange for the ability to see all their friends’ baby pictures or what that weird kid from school is up to these days. (He’s writing editorials about ag data privacy!) 

 We, as data creators and collectors, have in our possession a valuable asset. Like all assets, this one needs to be guarded with care. The American Soybean Association in recent years joined industry leaders and other farm groups to decide what to do with all the data being gathered about farmers’ fields, crops and equipment. Together, they established a common position for farmers and companies on privacy. And, ASA contributed to development of the Ag Data Transparency Evaluator, a tool designed to help farmers understand how their data will be used when they adopt precision ag technologies. We hope access to both the Data Principles and the Ag Data Transparency Evaluator available through ASA will help you with positioning your information and yourself for maximum success. 

The Rise of Real-Time Data

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New precision technologies, techniques, and tools are shifting farmers’ agronomic expectations from year-over-year improvement toward an in-season, just-in-time approach.

By Karli Petrovic

For the majority of the agriculture industry’s storied history, farmers have focused on slow, methodical adjustments that improve marketable yield from one season to the next. This approach is rapidly becoming obsolete. With the adoption of sensors, weather stations, satellite imagery, drones, and other precision tools, today’s producers expect to be able to make decisive improvements in real time.

Erich Eller, a long-time industry veteran and the owner of independent crop consulting business ForeFront Ag Solutions, has experienced the shift to a just-in-time agronomic approach firsthand. It’s his job to help customers use the latest technologies to improve production and the bottom line.

“I started working in ag retail when ‘precision ag’ was just called ‘GPS,’” Eller says. “Nobody knew what it was back then. Now, there are multiple platforms that we can use to move data through cell signals and pretty much have instant information.”

The Transition to In-Season Gratification

A lot of what ForeFront Ag focuses on is making fertility recommendations based on what Eller calls “soil personalities.” The process begins with mapping the topography of the customer’s field and layering it with yield data to create production zones. The company then takes soil samples from the production zones and using nitrogen models, sets goals for different areas. Ultimately, everything from scouting to weather monitoring comes back to maximizing a production zone’s potential.

“We started calling them soil personalities because if you’ve ever taken a Myers-Briggs test, you know that everybody’s personality comes out just a little bit different,” Eller says. “Well, it’s the same with soil. We’re basically finding the strengths and the weaknesses of the soil, and figuring out how to manage the weaknesses while pushing the strengths.”

ForeFront Ag has been doing this work for the past seven years, but things are certainly moving a little faster than they used to. The company uses soil moisture probes, a network of weather stations, and smart insect traps to foster a just-in-time approach. These tools empower faster, more precise decisions because these days, no one has the patience for year-over-year improvements. Times have changed.

“Growing up, my generation would sit down with a big atlas book and plan out a road trip,” Eller says. “Now, you just say, ‘hey Siri, how do I get there?’ It’s that whole thing of instant gratification, and I think that’s moved into the agricultural space, too. We all want that instant gratification, and by doing some in-season management, we can save money, improve our ROI, and use things like satellite imagery to pull together the essential information that will give us that real-time gratification.”

In the fall, for example, Eller can access nearly instantaneous information from the combine as it’s being used. The information comes directly to his laptop, enabling him to start prescribing fertility recommendations right away. He can accomplish something similar at the beginning of the season during corn and soybean planting.

“If the weather has changed, we can actually reduce some of our prescriptions and send that information up to the cloud, so that a tractor sitting in the field can grab it within minutes,” Eller says. “If I have to take a thumb drive out of the tractor, I’m not even in the office. Now, I have to drive from the field where I’m working to the office. You don’t have that kind of time during the season. When we’re talking hours of downtime, we’re also talking about thousands of dollars.”

The Future of Just-in-Time Agriculture

As the industry continues to invest in the tools and technologies that deliver real-time information, everyone will reap the benefits of being able to make effective real-time decisions. This, however, requires a great deal of understanding. A failure to analyze and use the data will render it meaningless.

“One of the key components of a just-in-time approach is understanding what the sensors and smart devices in the field are telling us, so we can document what’s happening and ensure we’re making the right decision about how to address what we’re seeing,” Eller says. “In the spots where the plant health is declining, for instance, we need to be able to put eyes on that area. We need to be able to make precise applications and do whatever we need to in order to increase crop health.”

Things are already moving fast, but there’s a lot more potential coming down the pike. Increased adoption of the current technologies will lead to smarter, faster machines. Eller says patience will be key.

“Last year, we started working with drones that are using artificial intelligence to find crop disease and identify nutrient deficiencies; I was really impressed with what we were able to do,” he says, noting that he’s also particularly excited about how this information can be used with autonomous sprayers and tillage equipment.

“I’m already looking ahead and starting to work toward those goals today,” Eller says. “Patience isn’t my big thing, but I’m trying to do it patiently because those things will be coming out in the near future.”

Defining and Ranking the Five Levels of Ag Data Transparency

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Read the full article on PrecisionAg.com >

Note:  Agribusiness Lawyer Todd Janzen, administrator of the Ag Data Transparent certification program, reflects on the state of data use agreements as he identifies five levels of ag data transparency. The PrecisionAg Alliance supports efforts that facilitate farmer understanding of data use agreements, and overall data transparency in agriculture that leads to increased trust in, and adoption of, digital technology tools. – Paul Schrimpf, Manager, PrecisionAg Alliance

As someone who is immersed in legal issues related to data privacy and ownership, it should come as no surprise that I have a Google alert set up so that I get notified when a company uses the words “transparency” and “ag data” in a sentence. I get 2-5 emails per week, so there is still a lot of buzz in the industry surrounding ag data.

What I observe from the email traffic is interesting. Some ag tech providers treat “transparency” as a marketing buzzword — something companies say because farmers want to hear it — and others build transparency into every aspect of their organization. Using these extremes as bookends, I thought it was worth a deeper dive into categorizing the different levels of transparency between these points.

Establishing some levels would provide farmers and service providers a benchmark for comparing the relative transparency of the partner organizations they currently use, or plan to engage. It would also allow the companies themselves to pinpoint their approach and identify a pathway to improvement.

Here are the levels of ag data transparency from least transparent to most.

Level 1: Borrowing data privacy contract forms from other industries. In this category are tech providers that have given no consideration to the unique aspects of agricultural data. As a result, these providers have cut and pasted contract forms (e.g., terms of service, privacy policies, EULAs) used by other industries. While better than nothing, these forms lack transparency because they fail to define what “agricultural data” is. Instead, these providers treat ag data as just another form of “information” or “data” to be collected. Transparency begins with understanding what data is being collected. Generic forms can’t do this.

Read the full article on PrecisionAg.com >

Rodney Wright: Better Farming With Precision

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Leader in Precision

Even if you leave it for a while, there’s something about growing up on a farm that’s been in your family for generations, says Rodney Wright of Wright Farms in Tyronza, AR, recipient of the farmer award in the 2018 Awards of Excellence program.

“It just gets you. I went to school and majored in ag engineering. I saw all these things on the farm and thought, ‘Why do they do it like that? We should do it like this to make it better.’ My dream job at one time was to go to school, get an ag engineering degree, and then go to work for John Deere. That last thing never happened.”

Instead, after undergrad and a stretch working for Jacuzzi Brothers and at the University of Arkansas in irrigation research, Wright returned to his home base in Northeast Arkansas in 1993 – to farm ground in the same areas that his grandfather and father farmed. From that point on, he has never stopped improving it and making it the most efficient operation possible.

It’s perhaps the reason why precision agriculture has become such a passion for Wright. Precision is a way of conservation – a way of honoring the history of his family farm and ensuring it thrives for years to come.

Precision ag first grabbed Wright’s attention 15 years ago at the Arkansas Crop Management Conference. “This farmer was there, and he was presenting all of these fields with yield maps, and I was like, ‘Man, that’s incredible.’ I had worked in research, so the details were really interesting to me. Yield mapping was probably what really got me on the track, and the guidance systems for tractors is still kind of mind-boggling – how the little receiver on the top of the tractor can talk to those satellites and can steer your tractor in a perfect, straight line. That’s always been kind of neat.”

While he produces a variety of crops, including grain sorghum, cotton, corn, soybeans, and wheat, the huge water management challenge of growing rice is what has captured his interest the most. Wright is currently in his second year using Dr. Chris Henry’s (University of Arkansas) Multiple Inlet Rice Irrigation (MIRI) program, which uses shape files to determine the acreage of the field’s contour levees. Based on the pipe diameter, well flow rate and drop in field grade, it calculates the size of holes to be punched so that the field waters evenly, eliminating the need for spillways.

“If you can imagine, 30 inches is a lot of water you have to put on the field,” Wright says. “With this system, you never lose water at the end of your field. My goal is to never see water running out at the end of this field all year.”

Wright employs a similar irrigation system in his row crops, and is also looking to utilize his yield mapping to create management zones for fertility, seeding, and other crop decisions.

Many have not only taken note of Wright’s dedication and expertise in irrigation, but followed his lead. Just some examples: He was appointed to the Arkansas Agriculture Irrigation Science Technical Working Group in 2016. He was also appointed to the Mississippi County Farm Bureau committee on Research and Extension Resolutions, and served on board of the Mississippi County Conservation District for 10 years until 2014.

“Rodney’s role with the Mississippi County Conservation District formed close connections with USDA National Resources Conservation Service personnel that enhanced his use of precision agricultural technology to simultaneously reduce risk at the farm level and reduce potential runoff of nutrients via over-application and erosion,” says Jennifer Bouldin, professor at Arkansas State University who worked closely with Wright when he was attending the school. His roles with NRCS, Farm Bureau, and academic publishing “has placed him at the focus of decisions being made in Little Rock and Washington, D.C. Once Rodney decides whether a technology is profitable for his farm, his neighboring farmers follow his lead … He is a pillar to the agricultural community of Northeast Arkansas.”

Asked to reflect on the big picture of precision ag and its potential, Wright commented: “Farming has always been a business, but it’s one that took care of itself if the grower took care of his crops. Precision agriculture has changed all that; now a grower has precise information on practically every square foot of his farm. With this new level of intelligence, the grower can analytically and economically take his production to the next level to supply an increasing world population, while being environmentally friendly at the same time.

“I would like to encourage farmers, even if it requires getting help, to utilize yield and other data to manage crop production better and stay abreast of new technological innovations as they come online such as drone capabilities. Drones are getting more user-friendly and can allow for instant feedback on crop conditions.”

Brent Rendel: A Leader in Developing Precision Ag Practices

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Brent Rendel is a man who has been actively involved in farming and ranching his whole life. After graduating from Oklahoma State University with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1986, Rendel went on active duty with the U.S. Navy, retiring with a rank of Commander. He returned to the family farm near Miami, OK in 1997 and has been an active partner of the operation ever since. Rendel Farms has about 3,000 acres of winter wheat, winter canola, corn, grain sorghum, and soybeans.

For more than two decades, Rendel has been a cooperator with OSU extension specialists and researchers. He was the first to bring winter canola into his area as rotational crop, worked with OSU to evaluate using minimum tillage beds on his poorly drained crop ground, and was the earliest adopter and advocate of the N-Rich Strip, GreenSeeker (NDVI), and Sensor-Based Nitrogen Rate Calculator (SBNRC) methodology.

“In fact, adopter is not the best term to use. Developer is more accurate,” says his nominator, Dr. Brian Arnall.

“Brent hosted the earliest farm studies and provided feedback on every iteration of sensor and online calculator. He has been a leader in developing technologies and practices via sound science for Oklahoma and the surrounding areas.”

Arnell adds: “Brent never been afraid to share his wins or trials and tribulations. He also never gives up on an idea that has merit.”

PrecisionAg spoke with Rendel about his history on the farm and what drives him.

THE BEGINNING: “My great-grandfather moved to Oklahoma in the late 1800s from the Ohio River Valley. He bought his first ground just outside of Miami, in the far northeastern corner of the state, 5 miles from Kansas and 7 miles from Missouri. This is dryland country; there’s good groundwater but it’s too deep for irrigation. In this part of the world, we’ve got to maximize resources and do everything we can to keep costs in check. I’m not against spending money, as long as the dollar I spent on the crop returns more in the dollar in income. That’s why I started looking at precision ag – it’s all about maximizing return on investment.”

FIRST FORAY INTO PRECISION AGRICULTURE: “In 1996, the opportunity came to put my money on the line in the farm. Around 1998-99 is when I heard about the GreenSeeker that Oklahoma State University had been developing to better manage nitrogen in wheat and other crops. At that time, it was simply a large handheld device with a shoulder strap that you walked around the field. I was really impressed by the results, and with my engineering background, data and numbers speak well to me. It showed me the first year the dollar savings that I could have, so I went all in after that. My father was open-minded, so he embraced it, too. The ultimate thing with engineers is that numbers and data mean more than visuals. I deliberately left check strips in and adopted that system wholeheartedly after three years of testing and it always working in my favor.”

ON THE GOAL OF PRECISION: “Nitrogen is the hardest nutrient of all to manage, in my opinion, and it’s absolutely critical to manage right. Too little, you cost yourself yield; too much, you waste money. When I first started getting into (precision agriculture), I was talking with Bill Raun and Brian Arnall, who were my mentors, as well as Randy Taylor. They used a long-term study that goes back decades looking at the right amount of nitrogen to use in wheat. They came to find out that in some years, zero was the right number, and in some years, 4 or 5 lbs. per bushel of yield goal was the right number. When you average it out, it’s 2 lbs. per bushel of yield goal, and you still hear that.

But when you dig into the numbers, you find out that’s right one-third of the time. Two-thirds of the time it’s wrong. I wanted to be right more than one-third of the time. That’s what attracted me to GreenSeeker and was my whole leaping-off point into the concept of precision ag. Precision ag is not perfect and never will be perfect. The goal is that it’s better than what we’re doing now. So many people are turned off by the lack of perfection: ‘What if it’s wrong?’ But in many cases, a computer is more right than you are.”

ON LOW ADOPTION OF HIGH-ROI TOOLS: “If you put hard numbers to a tool like auto-steer, it has a very low payback in dollars. So why does it have universal adoption? The answer is, as soon as I push that button, my life just got better, and I know it. I feel better, I drive better, my rows are straighter, and I have time to look at my smartphone. When I punch auto-apply on nitrogen using an NDVI system, my life instantly had questions added to it – ‘Am I doing the right thing? Is it too much nitrogen, or not enough?’ A lot of adoption of technology seems to be about how it makes you feel, instead of what it does. That’s a challenge for the entire industry. If I’m running a center pivot, I need a soil moisture probe out in that field. The return on investment is massive, yet the adoption rate of those technologies is very low. It’s improving, but it’s nowhere near where it should be.

We plant about 1,400 acres of corn a year – that’s a lot, but a lot of farmers are bigger and can easily justify higher levels of precision. We just added planter that has ability to variable-rate plant, but it’s hard to cash flow that. The ROI just isn’t there, and at the end of the day, I’m about ROI.”

ON FUTURE TECHNOLOGY: “One that I like is (John Deere) Blue River’s See & Spray. I think that could be a complete game-changer. It helps farmers because it reduces cost of chemicals, and immediately starts paying itself back. I think in eight to 10 years it’s going to become the industry standard. I was talking to one of the guys at the company and said, ‘Even taking the spray off the table, you’re telling me today, you could drive one of my fields and give me a map and tell me what weed species I have mapped across my field?’ He said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s easy.’ Do you understand how valuable that one piece of information is? If the spray piece is hard, give me that piece where I can go across field and map my weeds. I think that’s a really exciting piece of technology.”