Future agriculture will handle large data in the fields

Kip Tom (Kip Tom) is the 7th-generation family farmer, whose main crop is corn and soybeans, and he is also working on corn breeding and data processing. "I'm thinking about the relationship between information and productivity," he said, sitting in his office, talking about what he was filling up on a computer screen, and planning the computer network on his farm in a chart-strewn whiteboard.

Tom, 59 years old, plays the dual role of a farmer and chief technology officer. "My great-grandfather worked on a donkey on a farm and we had all kinds of sensors, GPS data from satellites, a cellular modem on autopilot tractors, and irrigation work done with iphone apps," he said.

The decline of small family farms has been going on for years. But modern technology has provided a life for farmers such as Tom, who depend on the land to see hope again. These technologies are expected to help them compete with agricultural giants.

Some benefit from it, while others suffer from it. These should be attributed to (or blamed) on Silicon Valley, whose inventions have left some of the old-fashioned ways of getting things done. With the latest technology, Tom's farm was expanding from 700 acres in the 1970s to 20000 acres today. However, this is the result of the annexation of neighbouring farms.

In addition, the technical inputs are more than the affordability of many small farmers. Agricultural equipment manufacturers like the American Strong deer (John Deere) and AGCO are equipping their seeder, tractor and harvester with sensors, computers and communications equipment. A farm machine used to harvest a handful of crops may be priced at around $65,000 trillion in 2000, and now, after the addition of various information technologies, the price has increased to $500,000.

"We have seen a significant increase in productivity on the scale of the farm," said David Schimmelpfennig, an economist at the Ministry of Agriculture, David Shumevernig. "It is not because small farms cannot raise their productivity, but because they cannot afford to invest in upgrading technological equipment," he said. ”

There is another risk. Planting a single crop in as large a scale as possible can maximize its investment in technology. Farmers, who diversify their crops and breed livestock, need many different systems to meet their needs. In the absence of technical assistance, small farmers can also grow only single crops, but they cannot benefit from economies of scale.

The Berkeley Food Cato, executive director of the Berkeley Food Research Institute, which leads the research on policy and technology at the University of California, says that with technology, farmers tend to grow crops that are easy to grow and sell, These crops are also more easily monitored by instruments. They no longer plant multiple crops--a strategy previously used to combat the effects of disasters, weather and pests.

The situation is vaguely worrying, but technological advances are also expected to make farming more straightforward. Like Tom's Farm, other technology-using farms also have a good momentum of development.

At a large family farm in Phatad, Texas, Brian Blaiswil (Brian Braswell) is ploughing with a satellite-attached tractor, with a precision of 1 inches between the ditch and the ditch. He measured the land charge and then carried out a dose-accurate fertilization operation through computer-controlled equipment. He also uses drones to predict irrigation.

"By having an infrared camera on the drone, I can easily see which areas of the crop need to be irrigated," he said. Of course, he is also concerned about the control over the use of drones by the United States Aviation Administration (Aerogem ADMINISTRATION,FAA).

In an area of 6000 acres on a farm in Conrad, Iowa, Brent Schipper is getting data readings from his combine, which are updated every 3 seconds for Sipa. During the storm season, he looks at the latest weather data every 30 minutes through smartphone weather applications. In the past, after harvesting, he and other farmers usually rested during the winter while maintaining the farm machinery, and now they intend to use the time to equip themselves with more sensors and analyze the last quarter's data to try to get better results in the next quarter.

At Iowa State University in Ames, university professor Tangli hopes to be able to test his lawn-weeding robots in the coming spring. The robot is expected to help identify and eradicate weeds through infrared data.

In the past, "a farmer with 1000 acres of land could have a good day," said Tom. "But I don't know how long it will last." ”

Tom's farm has genetically modified crops and cloud-based systems, and is likely to have drones in the near future, and Mr. Tom may not yet have a plan to use LEO Satellite laser technology. All of this equipment collects its own data back into the cloud computing system for analysis, which was rented by Tom's Farm from Monsanto and other companies.

"Some farmers still think that technology means real things, like stronger horsepower or more fertiliser," says Mr Tom. "They don't realize that today's technology refers to the processing and utilization of information." "In the past few years, crop prices have fallen by nearly 50% per cent," and my growth has come from the market space of other farmers who do not employ technology. ”

Through an automatically driven American strong deer combine, Tom Farm's employee, Nie Beblic Ernie Burbrink, is using his ipad to deal with the humidity, gross harvest and net harvest data of every acre of crop in real time, The important data is then transmitted through the wireless modem to the server for analysis of the planting situation in the coming year.

"In the past, if you were good at manual work, you would be a good farmer," says Mr Beblic. "Now you need to understand screen navigation, and you need to get the data back in place so people can plan and predict." You also need to work with others: seed advisers, agricultural economists, and people who provide equipment.

Beblic, 34 years old, left his family farm. "I just wanted to work for Mr. Kip, who might have been a technical leader for my father for 5 years." You need to have more land than our family can afford to invest in technology, "says Beblic, who has a degree in agricultural economics from Purdue University.

Tom's farm currently has 25 employees, including 6 family members, and may have up to 600 temporary employees during the busy season. "If you have a good year, a farm like this can generate more than 50 million dollars in income," said Tom. He declined to disclose profit margins, but pointed out that, compared with many industries, agricultural profit margins were low.

In the agricultural crisis of the 1980s, he begged for a loan of up to 21% interest rates, and the situation was still vivid. He owes his farm's survival and development to the application of technology, and says that's why he still makes a profit when corn prices are only 4 dollars per bushel. The price has fallen by nearly 50% per cent compared to 2 years ago.

Looking back over the past year, he said he had raised his annual return on investment from 14% to 21.2%, thanks to better analysis of the data. The use of other technologies, such as different irrigation rates and automation of agricultural machinery, has contributed another 4% to his return.

Many farmers like Tom are wary of large companies that have their data. Tom shares some of the information with large companies such as Monsanto, but he remains cautious about the company's policy on data preservation. He also worries about how computing can affect the future of the farm, and he wants to leave the farm to his children.

"We and other farmers can assemble their own production data in real time," he said. "Do you think big companies will stick to their bottom line in dealing with these data?" You have to expect them to. Farmers don't trust them. Moreover, we are independent and we are competitors. ”

Cassandra Roland (Kassandra Rowland) is one of Tom's five children, who is responsible for personnel and work with other farms or companies, and is also responsible for managing and maintaining farms on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest on the account. She has a 9-year-old daughter who is in the local primary school and joins the Robotics club.

"It's another huge change," Tom's 84-Year-old mother Mary E. Tom (Marie E. Tom) said. "Our daughters attend farm meetings, they speak freely and they are respected," she said. In the past, it was not so. At that time, everything on the farm was carried out in the fields. ”

Tom's father was still looking after the animals at the age of 87. "Many people don't take care of farms as a business," said Mrs. Tom. "When we got married, I told my husband, ' Don't be sloppy when you go to town, lest they be looked down upon. And now, we are operating, if you do not try to keep up, you will lag behind. ”

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)