Tech Meets Dirt: The Future of Farming is Here

Tech Meets Dirt: The Future of Farming is Here

The prairies of America’s heartland are quiet. But little about farming there is old-fashioned. High-tech tractors steer themselves down the rows of cropland with a precision to rival any factory assembly line. Drones whizz overhead, their cameras scanning for insect infestations or mineral deficiencies. Soil sensors send a steady stream of data about moisture and mineral levels back to the farm. If you want to know what the farm of the future looks like, a good place to start is with the crops already in the field.

No longer do farmers rely only on almanacs and weather lore, not to mention more than two centuries of close reading of the landscape and accumulated insights. Those are still valuable, but steadily they are augmented by a profusion of new high-tech tools that are altering the practice of agriculture in fundamental ways. Agricultural technology is about more than just techno-cool. It is about creating more productive, sustainable, and efficient agricultural systems that can feed the world.

Leading the way into this next stage of agricultural evolution is precision farming. By using GPS-enabled field equipment, sensor networks rooted in the soil, and powerful computing software, fields can be managed with centimeter‑level precision. Imagine a machine that knows not just how and where to plant a crop with pinpoint accuracy but can also determine with equal specificity how much fertilizer to apply, or when to irrigate. All these details can be determined by computer based on information gleaned from the field itself and by looking at the history of growth. Precision farming allows you to utilize inputs at optimal levels, reducing both environmental impacts and wasteful usage, while maximizing production.

Companies such as John Deere, the US maker of farming equipment that bears its name, has led the way in precision agriculture. Its latest tractors are fitted with GPS guidance systems accurate to within fractions of an inch — an improvement that means the machines can plant rows that are also within the same inch and a quarter, cutting fuel consumption, reducing soil compaction, and making the whole operation more efficient.

But the high-tech farm isn’t simply confined to what happens near the surface. The rise of remote sensing technologies – such as satellites and drones – have given farmers a God’s-eye perspective. These aerial observers can spot crop stress or pest infestations or disease when they are still too small to be picked up by the human eye. This allows farmers to act only where, and when, treatments are needed.

The agtech company DroneDeploy, the maker of the world’s most popular drone software, now partners with several agricultural firms to analyses crops. The drones can capture hundreds of acres in a single flight, with imagery captured at twice-daily intervals and analyzed by AI algorithms looking for problems such as nitrogen deficiency or water stress.

Perhaps one of the most interesting innovations in farming within the last decade is the Internet of Things. Based on this network of interconnected devices, farms are becoming smart environments where each of the variables that determine crop growth is measured and controlled. A variety of sensors spread out over fields monitor soil moisture, temperature and humidity, or even the speed at which plants grow. The data is sent either to central computers or to smartphones, enabling real-time decisions about the conditions of the fields.

One of them is Farmwise, a startup in California that takes it even a step further than reducing pesticide use. Its fleet of self-driving weeding robots, which move through the field spraying only the weeds with a minuscule amount of herbicide and precision-cutting or smothering the rest, can free up a remarkable amount of human labor.

Underpinning all of these wonders is the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence and machine learning. It’s the ability of such algorithms to make sense of vast data flows – from old weather and crop yields to current market prices and consumption trends – that’s able to offer insights and predictive abilities beyond even the most astute of human reasoning.

From robot harvesters to weather-responsive irrigation systems, these technological advances are not mere feats of cool technology or market-driven innovation. They are, instead, excellent examples of the use of technology to less harm to the environment at the same time.

Examples include precision irrigation, which reduces water use by up to 30 per cent relative to traditional irrigation techniques; smart fertilizer application, which brings about a significant reduction in the runoff of nutrients that pollute water; and more efficient use of land, leaving more room for natural habitats and biodiversity.

But the move to high-tech farming isn’t without its pitfalls. Because of the high initial cost of equipment, small-scale farmers may not be able to afford the technology. There are also concerns about data privacy and the fact that the agricultural sector is increasingly controlled by a few big tech companies.

Moreover, as the human labor associated with farming becomes increasingly automated, there are fears that people in rural areas might lose their jobs. However, proponents of these technologies believe that the development of new, higher-skilled jobs in rural areas – from drone operators to data analysts – will more than offset those losses.

Despite these challenges, it looks as if technological agriculture is here to stay. With the need to feed a world population, predicted to swell to 9.7 billion people by 2050, and genuinely respond to the challenges of climate change, the march of technological agriculture promises food for all into the next century.

The farm of the future is here today — it’s just a good deal smarter than it used to be. As we teeter at the crossroads of silicon and soil, one thing is certain. Farming’s futures are not about doing more. They are about doing more intelligently. Coupled with long-term agricultural common sense, perhaps we’ll be able to invent a future in which our farms, and our planet, are both winners.