With precision agriculture finally ready to fulfil its promise, should you look to expand even faster? The answer depends on whether you have the time
The predictions came fast and furious when relatively accurate GPS units first made their debut outside the military a decade ago. In essentially the twinkling of an eye, we were told, precision agriculture would begin slashing our use of inputs and we would apply only what we needed where it was needed, with medical precision. Precision ag would improve our environmental stewardship too, and it would have even bigger implications in the farm office.
Suddenly, large farms could have the same kinds of insight into their fields that until then only smaller farmers could have, and large farms would be able to match the kinds of painstaking management that until that had meant that smaller farmers routinely pulled off bigger yields of higher-quality crops.
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Data would outcompete Daddy, and crop production was about to take a giant leap toward industrialization.
The truth, however, is that it hasn’t quite turned out that way, at least not on all farms.
Instead, precision agriculture has often stumbled along, unable to break out of its early stages. Adoption has lagged behind the predictions, and actual utilization has lagged even further behind with all sorts of yield maps sitting in computer files that never get opened.
The technology simply hasn’t been as useful or predictable as previously envisioned.
Nor is it a uniquely Ontario problem. Only about half of the 2,500 commercial farmers surveyed in 2007 by Ohio State University economists owned even one piece of precision farming equipment.
Now, the tide may be turning.
Statistically, larger farmers have scooped up the technology more quickly. Nearly 85 per cent of the largest farmers in the Ohio survey had adopted at least one of the precision agricultural component technologies, and Marv Batte, the survey’s author, concludes that the rate of precision agriculture’s adoption was seven times faster for the largest farm class than for the smallest class of commercial farmers.
This rings true with economic theory. After all, fixed costs do put a limit on which business sizes are likely to adopt any new technology. Plus, the more uncertain the technology, the more likely it is that it will only be adopted by larger farmers who are able to spread out those fixed costs even further.
As the price goes down, more people buy into new technology.
“The rate of adoption — and which precision agriculture component is adopted — are dependent on a number of factors including farm size, annual sales and what kind of crops are being grown, like high-value fruits, vegetables, corn and soybeans, or low-value crops like hay or pasture,” Batte says.
Even so, adoption rates vary a great deal, even between similar-size farms growing the same crops in the same regions. Obviously, the decision-making process on precision agriculture is more complicated than simply looking at return on investment.
As it turns out, the process is surprisingly emotional as well.
In particular, risk aversion is having a large negative impact on the adoption of information technologies. As well, younger farm managers who are familiar with personal computers are more likely to use precision agriculture equipment.
Researchers have found that the type of farmer matters as well. As crop yields go up, the use of precision agriculture goes up too, as it does on farms with more no-till and on farms that rely more on agricultural income.
Surprisingly — or at least it is becoming more apparent the further we go — uptake is also limited by human capital. The technology requires individuals to install and learn something new. It is technical and sometimes very complicated, and it therefore takes an investment of time and energy, two resources that are always in short supply on the farm.
Recently, the USDA’s Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) looked at adoption in major field crops of yield monitors, variable-rate application technologies, guidance systems and GPS maps. Yield monitors, the most common technology, were used on 40 to 45 per cent of U.S. corn and soybean acres in 2005-06. The likely reason is that yield monitors are available as standard equipment on some new farm machinery or can be installed with the fewest technical difficulties, especially with plug and play.
For similar reasons guidance systems such as auto-steer showed a strong upward trend, with 35 per cent of U.S. wheat producers using it by 2009.
Conversely, the least-adopted precision agriculture equipment is variable-rate application of pesticides and micronutrients. The U.S. survey found GPS maps and variable-rate technologies were used on only 12 per cent of corn and eight per cent of American soy acres.
That’s surprising considering the same survey found that adopters of GPS mapping and variable-rate fertilizer equipment had higher yields for both corn and soybeans.
Also, “adoption” statistics can be misleading. Owning the technology doesn’t mean you’re actually making good management decisions based on the information. Sometimes yield monitors are just bragging tools, or a GPS system is used simply to find fields. Every farm and farmer is different, so the way the technology is applied varies, making it difficult to nail down payback.
Brent VanKoughnet, farmer and owner of Agri Skills Inc. in Carman, Man., says it isn’t the cost that is holding farmers back. Nor is it the payback, or the capability of the technology. It isn’t even farm size, geography, or the type of crop on the farm that limits the usefulness of precision agriculture technology.
Precision agriculture’s constraint, says VanKoughnet, is people power.
“Management hunger is the limiting factor,” says VanKoughnet. “It’s best for those who believe in continual improvement, and it doesn’t matter what size the farm is.”
“Some big farms bought the technology faster simply because they were flipping equipment faster,” says VanKoughnet. “But that doesn’t mean that they are using the tools better. The smaller farmer who went though the hassle of adding yield monitors really knows why he bought it and has a purpose for it.”
Some farmers say there are just too many uncontrollable variables impacting yield to make the VRT tweaks pay in the long term, unless in extreme situations. As well, since multiple variables can affect production, it’s important to isolate key issues based on information, review information about them, and then maybe try different solutions.
VanKoughnet says it just takes discipline to analyze and criticize what you’re currently doing and link it to research and real data.
“Rather than just having visual observations, yield maps can tell exactly what worked and what didn’t,” says VanKoughnet. Although the variables can randomize the results, at least you have some knowledge to base your decisions on.
With so many natural variations, it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s real because of the change or not, says Dick Shoney, agricultural economist from the University of Saskatchewan.
This spring, Shoney asked a small group of western Canadian farmers he describes as “leading edge” about the factors influencing the role of technologies. The participants said VRT was great if you knew the topography of the land and had good-quality software. “They said the problem with early adoption of variable rate technology was quality of the software. It just wasn’t that accurate,” says Shoney.
Also, adopting VRT requires extra commitment and knowledge. Taking the leap from auto-steer to creating and using GPS maps and VRT equipment demands an extra level of expertise, more data management and additional cost.
Besides, with the speed, ease and effectiveness of glyphosate-tolerant crops, why bother with variable rate?
One of the biggest values that VanKoughnet sees for precision agriculture technology for his clients is it allows for on-farm research on-the fly without disrupting the commercial operation. “But you have to plan ahead in the slower season how to integrate it into the farm,” he says.
“In my experience some larger farms have a champion who is the driving force within,” says VanKoughnet. “It’s remarkable how often those individuals lose the fight and are considered playing when they are trying to do on-farm research.”
VanKoughnet says on-farm research is becoming more common and generally the results are not shared with neighbours. Instead he sees farmers giving their conclusions in confidence to crop buyers under an IP agreement.
“Intelligence is becoming the limiting factor for farming,” VanKoughnet says. “Who you share that information with will depend on the strategic nature of the relationships.” CG
