Three Questions with a CropLife 100 Ag Retailer on 2020 Successes
The debut of Tech Hub LIVE, July 20-21 in Des Moines, IA, is a little more than a week away, and this new conference and expo is not what you would expect. If you think the educational sessions will be PowerPoint filled or you’ll simply walk the trade show floor as you’ve done in the past, you are mistaken.
Tech Hub LIVE is about interaction – bringing together people to learn, connect, and engage with leaders across data-driven agriculture sectors.
For the educational portion of this show, the creators of this new event combined the forces of industry leaders, academia, and those with boots on the ground experience to create a dialog with attendees and engage them in thought-provoking discussions. They will be delving into topics such as the best way to adopt technology, the components of nitrogen need, and the state of robotics and automation, just to name a few. Their goal? To provide you with practical tools and information that can help you achieve your goals – and increase your profits.
Along those same lines of providing practical, useful information, on the trade show side, Tech Hub LIVE offers Tech Talks on the show floor at various times throughout the two-day event. These 10-minute presentations on the latest products, services, and technology will provide you with the information you need to help you better do your job.
Bruce Baier, Ag Partners
We reached out to an attendee from a CropLife 100 ag retailer, Bruce Baier from Iowa-based Ag Partners LLC, to get some feedback on what the company is working on and how this season is progressing compared to last year. Baier, the Insite Precision Ag Systems Team Leader and Agronomy Operations Manager, also offers some insight on what he hopes to gain by attending the debut of this trade show and conference.
1. How is the season progressing and how does it compare to last year?
Bruce Baier: Operationally, it has been a fantastic year to get fertilizers, crop protection, and planting operations done. However, the weather was not as good with cool dry conditions early, hampering crop emergence and growth.
Now, with warmth and moisture, the crops are looking better. Last year, we were cool and wet early and then dried out in summer and fall.
2. What are you having success with on the tech side?
Bruce Baier: We have grown our crop data management program this year and, more importantly, our retention level is 100%. We obviously couldn’t have a big group forum for our large customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we were able to do one-on-one meetings with Zoom, which had a positive impact as we figured out how to deliver the data and information.
Another success is we grew the business by 15,000 acres in 2020. That may not sound like much, but with the pandemic, I think it’s a win.
3. What are you looking for or hoping to learn at Tech Hub LIVE?
Bruce Baier: I am looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and gathering practical knowledge that we can use for our customers’ operations. I’m always interested in learning about drones and the imagery as well as hearing about what other people are doing – their successes – that we can incorporate in our program.
Simply put, I want to learn things that I can bring to our producers and help with our program.
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