Farming Leaves the Barn in a Hurry!
Technology is changing the speed at which farmers work while improving the crop quality.
In 1999, John Deere acquired NavCom, a leading maker of precise GPS equipment. Why? GPS enables farmers to plant, fertilize and time harvesting with far greater precision. It is not too futuristic to think of tractor and combine drones that do their work without drivers.
Through electromagnetic radiation monitoring via satellite, Infoterra, a French company, can provide faster, cheaper and persistent soil analysis data to farmers. Such data can reveal the quantity of crop growing, levels of minerals, moisture and other quality measures. When added to recent and forecast weather data, farmers can more accurately determine how, where and when crops should be grown. This includes precise recommendations on which fertilizers to use and when.
Just as the Internet has enabled consumer products companies to shift from mass marketing to one-on-one marketing to individuals, these technologies are enabling farmers to be far more precise about how they manage their acreage. The common thread in both is shortening the time it takes to detect and correct for changing conditions and reducing the level of aggregation. Think about it…whenever you can speed up feedback and reduce batch size of work, speed, flexibility and quality improve.
