Conference participants honored guests - I am both humbled and honoured to be here addressing you today at this conference on Precision Agriculture. I come to share my experience of working with Precision Agriculture tools since 1974.
To provide a framework for our time together I want to offer quotes from two outstanding thinkers. The first is by Albert Einstein:
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
The second quote is from Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People:
"New paradigms require new levels of thinking."
How many of you are excited about change? When I ask this question, I get mixed reactions. What we learned 25 years ago is obsolete information; not the principles or values we learned, but the information we learned. The information obsolescence rate has been projected that by the year 2000, it will be every 3 years and by the year 2030, it will be every 30 days. If we are having trouble adjusting to change, we will have trouble adjusting to where our individual careers and businesses are going to be. It is essential that one of the skills we need to develop for the 21st Century is dealing with rapid change.
Management expert, Peter Drucker, said, "the modern farm, like any other knowledge-based business, will have to build the management of change into its very structure." This quote by Drucker caught my eye for two reasons: first, he referred to the modern farm as "like any other knowledge-based business". How many of you know what a knowledge-based business is? The second part that caught my eye is that the modern farm will have to build change into its very structure. Those of us who are in the business of serving farmers have a great opportunity to help our farm clients through the process of change. The organizations that are able to help their customers change are the organizations that will thrive in the 21st Century.
There is a formula for change and that formula is represented as follows: D x V x F > R. "D" stands for dissatisfaction. What are we dissatisfied with, what is not working? "V" stands for vision. How do we want it to be, what do we want it to look like? "F" is for first steps. What are we going to do to get outside of our comfort zone? Part of being able to change requires getting outside our comfort zone. What are the first steps we will be taking? All of these factors have to be times each other in order to overcome the "R" factor, which is resistance. Resistance is what prevents change from occurring.
Today we are going to talk about Precision Agriculture as a new set of tools that will allow agriculture to change in ways we have only been able to dream about, until now.
In January of 1990, four gentlemen put their heads together and published a list of factors that would shape the face of American Agriculture in the 21st Century. That list is as follows:
• The Globalization of Agriculture
• Regulation
• Water Quantity and Quality
• Conservation Tillage
• Agri-chemical use
• Maximum economic yield - M.E.Y. or maximum profit
(A mode of farming that uses the fewest inputs)
• More Specialized Services from Custom Planting to Financial Management
• Increased Yields
The four gentlemen who published that list are: former Secretary of Ag, John Block; Assistant Secretary, Orville Bentley; Bill Kirk from DuPont Ag Chemicals, and Jim McGrane from Texas A&M University. As you look at the list, you can see that those factors are definitely changing American agriculture. Precision Agriculture fits in the area of Maximum Economic Yield, how we are going to be managing inputs for the best possible returns both economically and environmentally.
The future shape of farming - one hundred plus Midwestern farmers attending the Top Farmer workshop at Purdue University in 1992 were asked to compare current management practices with their expectations for the year 2000. Highlights: Farmers expected farm size to increase by 66% and acreage devoted to crops under contract and for specific end uses to double. "Where these farmers were in 1992 is where the average farmer will be in 2000", said Howard Doster, Purdue's Ag Economist. This 1992 survey is proving to be on track, by 2000 it is estimated that 50% of U.S. corn production will be grown for contract and/or specific end use. The trends of the 1990's will shape the future.
There are some emerging trends that are shaping agriculture in the 90's. Research shows that the decade at the close of every century puts in motion the trends that will shape the first 25 years of the new century. So we are living in a time when we have some exciting things occurring. Trends in the 90's such as...Do you know where your nitrogen is, is certainly shaping American agriculture's nitrogen use. Can you be an environmentalist, is a question agriculturists are being asked. We need to all be environmentalists; we need to demonstrate to the consumer that we know what we are doing. Precision Agriculture provides us with a set of tools that allows that to happen.
Today I want to visit with you about the totally integrated solution that Precision Agriculture brings, including farm mapping G.I.S. software, support services, commercial variable rate applications, the on-farm variable rate application, yield sensing and the impact that global positioning technology has on all of this. Precision Agriculture allows us to take the inputs we have been putting into agriculture and, in appropriate ways, monitor and apply those very specifically; as well as gathering the outputs, the yield monitoring and all of the appropriate plant tissue analysis, soil analysis and nematode analysis, to create the best margin per acre of profitability.
The Seven Steps of Precision Agriculture, as our organization thinks of it, are as follows:
Step 1 Establish productivity, texture, organic matter, permeability and other permanent characteristics for each area of a field in an open architecture GIS mapping program.
Step 2 Measure existing fertility resources by using intensive soil sampling (2.5 acre grids).
Step 3 Record other physical and regulatory constraints.
Step 4 Generate detailed application prescriptions for all materials to be applied.
Step 5 Use variable rate application controllers.
Step 6 Monitor the results for initiating diagnostic action.
Step 7 Analysis of the results leading to important management decisions and changes.
Steps 1 and 2 are designed to create the database that the individual farmer will be needing. This database can be created in conjunction with a consultant or in conjunction with a local certified crop advisor at the retailer fertilizer plant. But it will require the farmer teaming up with more than himself to get this job done. An open architecture GIS mapping program is an essential tool to complete these steps.
Step 3 regards the physical and regulatory constraints. Farmers will be required to record what they do on their fields now, and very soon, this will move to proving what they do. Precision Agriculture technology with GPS and GIS technology, will allow farmers to design nutrient management plans and pesticide management plans that will allow them to prove exactly what they need for their input use, where they have placed it and what the outcome has been as a result of that process.
The regulatory pressure on agriculture is only beginning. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study found 60% of non-point source pollution problems are agriculture related. They are as follows:
1. Sediments
2. Animal Wastes
3. Purchased Fertilizer
4. Herbicides and Pesticides
As of January 1, 1993, the Coastal Zone Management Act became effective; it governs the use of nutrients and pesticides in Coastal Zone Management areas. This does not only include the Chesapeake Bay or the Del Mar Peninsula area; it includes the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, and Gulf of Mexico. It includes any coastal zone area. Agriculture needs to respond to this.
The reauthorization of the U.S. Clean Water Act will be a very important piece of legislation when it is finished and will probably have more impact on agriculture than the new Farm Bill. There is work under way right now that will put an 11-digit Watershed zip code on every piece of farmland in the United States. It will look like this: 05060002210
05 Basin
06 Major Tributary
0002 Accounting and Catalog Number
210 Neighborhood Creek
This watershed zip code will allow the appropriate regulatory agencies to manage the activities going on within watersheds. Farmers will need to know their place in the watershed and how their farm affects other areas within the watershed. Clean water can be possible without rigid regulation. Agriculture needs to be proactive in adapting Precision Agriculture processes. Farmers will need to have a conservation plan or water quality plan in place in order to use the products they want to use in a profitable way on their respective farms. One key mission of the 90's is for farmers to know their environmental address to the last zip code digit.
When we examine Step 4 of Precision Agriculture, we are using a GIS based open architecture software program to generate detailed application prescriptions for any material to be applied. This includes seed, anhydrous ammonia, 28% N solution, phosphorus and potassium, limestone, herbicides; any of these products can be formulated into an appropriate prescription that meets the input needs for that respective crop. The use of a GIS based computer software program is the tool to help create these new prescriptions.
In essence, what Precision Agriculture is creating, is a knowledge-based business for farmers; a system that gets smarter every year a farmer uses it. We all know the power of data processing and the impact it had on improving many aspects of managing information. From data processing we graduated to what we are now experiencing as the "information age". Information Technology is something all of us are learning about. The next opportunity for us is to know that information technology is leading us to build knowledge-based businesses. The coming of knowledge-based business will create smart products and services that will turn companies into educators, and consumers into life-long learners. There is an older, however, excellent article in the September/October, 1994 Harvard Business Review entitled, The Coming of Knowledge-Based Business, written by Stan Davis and Jim Botkin.
Step 5 is using the variable rate application controllers to get the product delivered to the field. The Ag-Chem Equipment Co. in Minneapolis, MN, has been leading the way with their Soilection process of getting fertilizer products delivered in a site-specific manner. The farm equipment industry now has other similar type controllers in tractor and combine cabs in order for similar activities to take place by individual farmers and retail suppliers.
Step 6 is probably one of the most exciting steps right now where we can put real-time yield sensors into combines and collect yield data as we travel through fields. The yield monitor is connected with appropriate global positioning equipment. Yield maps, in other words, real-time yield pictures, can be created for the first time. Yield maps change the paradigms of our fields. In 1992 we worked with our first two yield monitors and mapped over 4000 acres. At that time there were only approximately 50 yield monitors in the U.S. The chart summarizes the growth since 1992.
In 1997, of the 17,000 U.S. yield monitors, 56% of them were equipped with GPS. In 1997 the total number of yield monitors in the world was 20,000 with 40% equipped with GPS*.
*Source: Ag Innovator
A UK Market research company, the Produce Statistics Group, recently completed the most comprehensive analysis to date called Precision Farming in Europe. By 2005, the report suggests up to 70% of the UK arable farmers will be using GPS yield monitors. A similar percentage is predicted in Denmark and Sweden and the rate of use will be almost as high in Germany. In the years between 2005-2010 many farmers in Eastern Europe will follow suit.
The Equipment Manufacturers Institute in Chicago, Illinois has estimated that of the 310 million acres (125 million hectares) harvested annually in the United States, as many as 180 million acres could be covered by GPS - equipped yield monitors by the year 2005.
Step 7 allows us to take all of the geo-referenced data and perform the appropriate spatial analysis and modeling. This important step creates the evaluation process that will lead to making new management decisions and changes.
Precision Agriculture brings together a new set of tools that will allow farmers to build a knowledge-based business. The four elements of a knowledge-based business that are important to farmers and those of us who serve farmers, are as follows:
1. The more you use knowledge-based offerings, the smarter they get.
2. The more you use knowledge-based offerings, the smarter you get.
3. Knowledge-based products and services adjust to changing circumstances.
4. Knowledge-based businesses enable customers to act in real time.
A recent Rockwood Research "Question of the Week" asked "How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement":
"Precision farming techniques have a positive return on investment."
(Asked February 20, 1998.)
Opinion Percentages
I have included three different case studies (See Cases One through Three attached) documenting positive economic results from our Precision Ag clients ranging from a net of over $12 per acre to over $42 per acre. There will be many more positive results to come.
Someone once said that the power of an idea is best measured by the resistance given that idea. We have been working with Precision Agriculture ideas since 1974 when we started doing soil sampling on a 2.5 acre grid. Now 2.5 acre grid soil sampling is becoming a standard but the resistance to Precision Agriculture still is in place because when we consider the change formula, we have to overcome the resistance of the 3 other powerful factors: dissatisfaction, vision, and what first steps you are willing to take.
We can't sit still. The farmers who will be farming in the next 5 years are the ones who will be adopting the techniques of Precision Agriculture to allow them to move forward and build the knowledge based businesses they need in order to be more agronomically productive, more environmentally responsive and economically profitable.
