This photo from the 1920s shows a team of eight horses sowing a paddock on my great-grandfather’s farm, with the Catombal Range in the background. It was taken by his neighbour who also helped with sowing when he was needed.
In this series of ‘200 More Seasons’ articles, I reflect on my family’s farming experiences over almost 150 years, as a conversation starter about innovation and legacy building for all the seasons to come.
Today’s story is about teamwork. Back then, moving from a single draft horse with a mouldboard plough to harnessing a team of eight horses to cover more ground each day, the teamwork of the driver and his horses was critical to get the job done. Of course, the neighbour was part of the team sometimes too.
Fast forward to today and agtech should be considered part of the team. It’s a shift in thinking from the old ways, but each piece of agtech does a different job, and together it all helps drive efficiencies and profitability and make the farmer’s job that bit easier.
The data generated by agtech can inform their calculations and advice like never before. Their ability to review and critique plans and offer a second opinion is greatly enhanced with more and better data.
The development and growth of agtech means there is a mind-boggling choice between thousands of digital solutions and for many, knowing how and what to choose is just too hard to deal with.
As a fifth-generation farmer, I started Pairtree to help farmers get the biggest benefits out of agtech, by being able to stack data from different devices and services together.
Imagine a team where everyone speaks a different language and Pairtree is the translator for the farmer, agronomist or consultant to make the best decision from all of that information.
This means that even if you choose agtech solutions from several different suppliers, Pairtree makes all of the data ‘compatible’ so it delivers a complete picture of the operation and delivers insights to drive better business and operational decisions.
I suggest there are three key drivers for choosing agtech:
profitability, climate resilience and compliance for market access.
Good quality farm data is an asset, now and will also increase in value over time and become a digital legacy for future generations.
For my small cattle trading entity, a mix of AgriWebb, Optiweigh, Cibo Labs, Farmbot, Farmo and Metos Pessl, collectively deliver insights for all three of the key points listed above. These suppliers excel in making it easy to collect good data and provide insights that enable me to make good decisions.
Australia exports over 70% of our farm production and the types of data we need to collect and report on for compliance and overseas market access seems to increase every year. This is another compelling reason to employ agtech to help automate what we refer to as ‘business-as-usual data collection’.
Your ‘agtech team’ can collect data on everything from mob movements, regular weighing records, spray / fertiliser applications, ground cover, to water tank and fuel tank levels. This data can be reused to populate the mounting number of forms and reports needed for compliance and market access.
The ability to collect data once, then share and use it many times
in whatever format is needed is a game changer.
When choosing new members of your ‘agtech team’ make sure they’re happy to play with others. That is, ensure the provider makes it possible for you to share the data generated with whoever you choose and use it however you want now and in the future. This #collaborativeagriculture approach is about companies collaborating, rather than competing, for the benefit of producers.
The farmers with the ability to collect and share the best quality data about all aspects of their operation stand to gain the most now and in the future, and I reckon it is key to unlocking ‘200 More Seasons’.
200MoreSeasons™ – ©Kindly reproduced in collaboration with The Lightwood Consultancy.
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