Reading Time: 4 minutes One of Canada’s big six banks bets the agriculture sector’s gross domestic product could rise by nearly 60 per cent over the next decade if it were to have enough people, capital and access to new technology where ag lives. A report released by RBC on Tuesday titled “Farmer 4.0” estimates Canadian ag GDP could […] Read more
Ag sector growth will take investments in skills, tech now: RBC
Investing in agri-food technology
“A very dismal state of affairs” is how one investor looks at Canada’s ag tech future
Reading Time: 4 minutes San Eng thinks the agri-food technology investment climate in Canada might improve, but a “venture capital ecosystem” must develop quickly or the nation will lose out. “The people I’ve talked to are overlooking the sector — they don’t think it’s sexy enough, which is disappointing because the potential is there,” says the serial entrepreneur who […] Read more
Get smarter with your smartphone
Your phone is engineered to be addictive. No wonder it pays to set your own rules
Reading Time: 5 minutes There’s no doubt that smartphones are an incredible tool for farmers. We get the power of the internet in a device that fits in our pockets. With it comes the ability to check the weather, sell grain, listen to an audiobook, or identify a weed at the touch of our fingertips. Add in social media, […] Read more
Farm-wired
Proving that ag technology is on top of the electronic world
Reading Time: 5 minutes The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas teems with electronic gizmos and concept technologies of the future — you know, the things none of us had any idea about a year or two ago but soon won’t be able to live without. At this year’s event in January, one unexpected display towered over all […] Read more
Into the future
Celebrated ag tech guru Scott Shearer sees a profitable path ahead, together with some potential bumps
Reading Time: 4 minutes While it’s not exactly as futuristic as 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s no longer such a big stretch to imagine the day when a single operator anywhere in the world can remotely control 25 to 30 tractors, and when our crops effectively send us emails letting us know what they need. As professor and chair […] Read more
Selling hi-tech to farmers
Why is so much effort being put into new ways to sell high technology to farmers?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Several farm machinery writers occupied the two rows of mock tractor seats, each with a control armrest, which lined both sides of a special trailer on a warm January morning. Yes, an actual warm January morning, because the trailer was parked in an Arizona farm field, a location that Case IH had chosen for holding […] Read more
Chipping away
Tinkering with the environmental control systems on your new tractor or combine could cost a whole lot more than the $3,000 chipset
Reading Time: 6 minutes A few months ago I was talking with Jim Wood, chief sales and operations officer, at the Rocky Mountain Equipment dealership chain. He voiced concern at the time about equipment owners who were deleting the emissions systems in their late-model equipment. Aside from the issues this creates at dealership service departments, he expressed concern that […] Read more
Simplifying data management
Now into its second year, FieldView is helping users learn more, and do more for themselves
Reading Time: 5 minutes Precision ag is such a patchwork today. It seems to offer the potential to achieve so many great things on the farm, yet it can create almost as much bother and anxiety for the grower, i.e. the very individual it was created to help. With the number of systems, designs and platforms that can collect […] Read more
New from old
Adapting old machines to precision ag is possible after all
Reading Time: 5 minutes When it comes to reusing, recycling or refashioning, farmers have always been the best. But mention “precision ag” and the feeling is that everything has to be expensive and brand shining new. Seldom does it seem possible to take something that’s already on the farm and rework it into something to use today. What if […] Read more
Practical data
Brands look to break down the barriers that prevent farmers from integrating big data across lines
Reading Time: 2 minutes When telematics and digital data gathering technologies began appearing as options on major brand equipment a decade or so ago, it was a world full of boundaries — between those digital program offerings, that is. Some brands decided early on to go down the path of proprietary systems. Buy a green tractor, pair it with […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
