Running a Farm Like a Supply Chain
We wrote last June about the arrival of big data in agriculture. In late 2013, the controversial agriculture giant, Monsanto, (NYSE: MON) bought a private company called the Climate Corporation, which had assembled a massive database — precisely mapping 25 million American fields and compiling weather, climate, and soil fertility data. It was a perfect combination with MON’s own huge data resources on the crop yield performance of its own hybrid and GMO seeds. The company linked all this with another acquisition — Precision Planting, a company which developed automated farm equipment — and MON is on the way to providing an automated, big-data driven way to maximize yields for farmers — a product called FieldScripts. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has funded a startup called Granular, which allows farmers to manage operations in a cohesive, streamlined way with phone and tablet-based apps.
A Farmer’s New Critical Tool
With farmers eager to squeeze every drop of efficiency out of their operations, MON is not the only company moving in this direction. We recently read an interesting discussion of a “stealth tech” firm you wouldn’t expect to be running in these circles: John Deere (NYSE: DE). DE, it turns out, employs 2,600 software engineers — a third as many as Facebook (NASDAQ: FB). Not being farmers ourselves, we’ve read descriptions of the experience of riding in a new DE tractor, and it sounds more similar to riding in an airplane cockpit than our imagination would lead us to believe. We also read an article about a disgruntled veteran family farmer, used to repairing his own vehicles, stymied by the level of tech involved in new DE machines — rather than being able to repair it himself, he needed someone familiar with DE’s proprietary software.
Just as supply chains have been streamlined and rationalized by software, the same thing is happening to farms. This process is being enabled by the internet of things and by big data analytics.
Some analysts suggest that just as the Green Revolution is beginning to see its yield curve flattening out — with fewer and fewer dividends from the techniques that boosted crop yields in the latter half of the 20th century — “precision agriculture” might step in to save the day. With extremely “granular” data — applying fertilizer, for example, according to the specific soil composition and plant health in square-foot sized pieces of field — precision ag could provide another long-term boost to yields.
As we noted in our article above on cybersecurity and the internet of things, though, the deployment of all this smart technology — much of which will be autonomous — will present attractive opportunities for hackers. Like all other aspects of the internet of things, the rise of smart agriculture will also call for cybersecurity measures to be taken on a new level.
