Having just blogged about Netherlands agriculture and precision farming, I was struck this morning as I was skimming Twitter by a proposal to combine small farms with a small town (sorry but I didn't note the tweet and can't find it now). It seems to be that we can see the long time contest between the Enlightenment and the Romantic eras being reenacted today in farming.
On the one hand you have the increasing consolidation of farming in the US and elsewhere, consolidation being driven by investments in technology which increase the amount of commodities per acre and per hour of labor, with decreasing inputs per unit. It's the application of intelligence and human control to farming. On the other hand you have the less tangible byproducts and the emotions elicited by the process of organic and/or small farming.
I guess with that summary there's no hiding which side I basically favor.
Showing posts with label precision farming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label precision farming. Show all posts
Friday, February 15, 2019
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Precision Ag/Internet of Farm Things
Technology REview has a post on the Internet of Farm Things, noting the sensors on field equipment, the use of drones, the release of historical data (soil surveys), etc. and the involvement of big corporations.
There's speculation it will help farmers make a profit. I suspect the real impact will be a further lengthening of the tail--younger, bigger, more aggressive farmers will become bigger (though with a higher risk of failing) while older, smaller, less aggressive farmers don't. In other words, the history of farming ever since the invention of hoes and seeds.
"Combining information like localized weather forecasts with details about topography, water levels in the soil, and the seed that has been planted in a field, a company like Climate Corporation will advise farmers about how much fertilizer, an expensive item, to put on a field and when to do so."
There's speculation it will help farmers make a profit. I suspect the real impact will be a further lengthening of the tail--younger, bigger, more aggressive farmers will become bigger (though with a higher risk of failing) while older, smaller, less aggressive farmers don't. In other words, the history of farming ever since the invention of hoes and seeds.
Thursday, February 05, 2015
Acreage Reporting
Ever since 1933 reporting and checking crop acreages has been perhaps the biggest single workload item in AAA/ASCS/FSA's portfolio. Hence threats to it raise the alarms:
From the NASCOE newsletter
"Continuing on the subject of acreage reporting I want to assure you that NASCOE is leaving no stone unturned as we monitor the acreage reporting project that allows producers multiple options to file a report ( at FSA, with crop insurance, on line or other). Your leadership team understands that acreage reporting is the bedrock of all that we do at FSA and it is important that integrity in this process is maintained"With the development of precision agriculture, and the growing value of having data tied to a specific tract, twill be interesting to see how acreage reporting changes in the future.
From the NASCOE newsletter
Monday, December 01, 2014
Farming and IT (and a Very Bad Headline)
The NYTimes has an article today on the topic of information technology and farming, focusing on an Indiana farmer, Kip Tom, who handles 20,000 acres, up from 700 acres in the 1970's. The article is not bad, hitting the big data involved in precision farming, the use of drones, the rising status of women, etc. etc. It includes a quote from a former farmer who now is one of the 25 employees of the Tom operation, which includes 6 Tom family members.
It's titled: "Working the Land and the Data, Technology Offers Some Family Owned Farms a Chance To Thrive and Compete With Giant Agribusinesses". While the headline is fine, the subhead is worst one I can remember in a good while. It's based on this sentence in the article, a line which is undermined by the rest of the article: "It [technology] is also helping them grow to compete with giant agribusinesses]. The truth, more clear in the accompanying video, is that by going heavily into technology, and being smart enough to pick up land in the 1980's, when values had crashed, the Tom family were able to expand and thrive, when their neighbors went broke and sold their own operations.
Consider just the data in the article: the 20,000 acres of the current operation represents the equivalent of 28 farms in the 700 acre range from the 1970's. And those 700 acre farms in themselves probably represented several smaller farms from the era of horsepower (which Tom's father remembers his father plowing with). Leesburg, IN, by the way, has lost about 10 percent of its population since 2000.
At the risk of over-analyzing, I suspect the writer was impressed with Mr. Tom, considered him one of the good guys. Logically then, if he's a good guy, he must be competing with bigger operations, those soulless agribusinesses. A good guy can't be someone who succeeds by driving others out of business. Yes, "succeeds by driving...." is harsh, and not the way we usually think about individuals. Because of the invisible hand of the market, it's not any one individual/enterprise bankrupting others, it's just the way things are; some people win and some people don't.
It's titled: "Working the Land and the Data, Technology Offers Some Family Owned Farms a Chance To Thrive and Compete With Giant Agribusinesses". While the headline is fine, the subhead is worst one I can remember in a good while. It's based on this sentence in the article, a line which is undermined by the rest of the article: "It [technology] is also helping them grow to compete with giant agribusinesses]. The truth, more clear in the accompanying video, is that by going heavily into technology, and being smart enough to pick up land in the 1980's, when values had crashed, the Tom family were able to expand and thrive, when their neighbors went broke and sold their own operations.
Consider just the data in the article: the 20,000 acres of the current operation represents the equivalent of 28 farms in the 700 acre range from the 1970's. And those 700 acre farms in themselves probably represented several smaller farms from the era of horsepower (which Tom's father remembers his father plowing with). Leesburg, IN, by the way, has lost about 10 percent of its population since 2000.
At the risk of over-analyzing, I suspect the writer was impressed with Mr. Tom, considered him one of the good guys. Logically then, if he's a good guy, he must be competing with bigger operations, those soulless agribusinesses. A good guy can't be someone who succeeds by driving others out of business. Yes, "succeeds by driving...." is harsh, and not the way we usually think about individuals. Because of the invisible hand of the market, it's not any one individual/enterprise bankrupting others, it's just the way things are; some people win and some people don't.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Land History and Precision Agriculture
Via Marginal Revolution, here's Blake Hurst in The American (AEI) writing about precision agriculture. He argues that automated equipment will enable a big jump in the size of farms. Sounds logical, but...
In FSA I used to be responsible for reconstitutions, the rules on how to make history follow the land as new owners and new operators changed the configuration of farms. For years I dodged getting into it because it seemed more complex than I wanted to grapple with, but then I gradually succumbed and found it interesting.
With that background I started to muse about the effect of precision agriculture on changes in farms. As Hurst describes it, a good part of precision farming is building up a base of detailed data associated with each square meter (or other unit) of land, base extending over several years worth of plantings, fertilizations, and harvestings, data including weather and soil conditions.
So if I farm a section for several years and build up this database, what happens when I die and someone else takes over. Does the landowner own the data or is it the operator? (I'm not clear whether the farmer is storing the data in the cloud, or in a device which he owns and controls.) Can there be provisions for transferring the data from one operation to another?
In FSA I used to be responsible for reconstitutions, the rules on how to make history follow the land as new owners and new operators changed the configuration of farms. For years I dodged getting into it because it seemed more complex than I wanted to grapple with, but then I gradually succumbed and found it interesting.
With that background I started to muse about the effect of precision agriculture on changes in farms. As Hurst describes it, a good part of precision farming is building up a base of detailed data associated with each square meter (or other unit) of land, base extending over several years worth of plantings, fertilizations, and harvestings, data including weather and soil conditions.
So if I farm a section for several years and build up this database, what happens when I die and someone else takes over. Does the landowner own the data or is it the operator? (I'm not clear whether the farmer is storing the data in the cloud, or in a device which he owns and controls.) Can there be provisions for transferring the data from one operation to another?
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