Ag Data Turned the Corner in 2020
November 23, 2020 The year 2020 will certainly be remembered for many things, most of them extremely unpleasant. Besides the giant, joy-killing, stress-making, business-crushing invisible elephant in the room, we’ve had storms, fires, protests, insane political divisiveness, depressing celebrity deaths, and more.
While all this is true, I will also remember it as the year literally 1,000 home and auto projects were wrestled to the ground. It was also the best summer weather Cleveland has had in literally decades. And my wife and I discovered that our friendship can endure endless hours together in isolation, a nice comfort in a world of uncertainty. I hope all of you found that the stress of this interesting year created a few diamonds in your world.
Here in agriculture, one of the real positives I see as we head out of 2020 has been the gravitational pull toward better data integration and improved connectivity. Even before the year started, venture investment in production agriculture solutions was clearly slowing down, leaving traditional agriculture companies and a few best-in-breed technology companies to figure out how to move the industry forward. The sugar rush of data-focused “solutions” that flowed into the industry have by now found partners, been acquired, or disappeared.
Personally, I’ve seen this digestive process in agriculture many times, from the dot-com bust to assisted steering systems to ethanol to drones, to name a few. Each wave reshapes the industry and transforms it, and often leaves those that survive with a new set of challenges and opportunities to face. But the maturation of technology around data collection and utilization is particularly intriguing.
The data dilemma has been with us for decades, right? When I started at the magazine in 1998 and took a shine to the technology side of retail, I wrote embarrassingly sunny editorials about the transformative power of integrated data for agronomic and business decision-making. It’s right around the corner, we just have to pull it all together.
But so many things get in the way. Companies building proprietary solutions that don’t talk, then there’s terrible internet connectivity, technology bridges to nowhere, oversold solutions that make the market skittish, and set us back. And, the perpetually nagging issue of value — why is the data so important? If the farmer can’t see the value clearly, then who is it for?
I feel like this year marks a watershed moment for agriculture data, with value benefits shifting upstream to the retailer and farmer. And there are a number of examples. Equipment and input manufacturers are focused on turning data into value creation around their own products, while also engaging with other ag providers to enhance the customer experience. Not needing to own the entire experience has been liberating for the industry.
On the retail side, Nutrien and Winfield have made demonstrative progress in building digital customer experiences that make data useful and transparent to farmers. And as I explored last month in a story on imagery data, there is blessedly little talk about how one nugget of information changes the game … it’s the bringing together of all the data, paired with the expertise of a trusted advisor, that brings the value. And in the not so distant future, sustainability and carbon sequestration will be driven by the progress we’ve made on collecting and managing field data.
For the dozens of awful things 2020 will be remembered for, my hope is that at last, it will be recalled as the year we started delivering real, consistent value on ag data.
Subscribe Today For
