Value-Centric Technology Adoption: Let’s Get it Right in Precision Agriculture
For those not familiar, we at Meister Media started a group called the PrecisionAg Institute (now the PrecisionAg Alliance) back in 2006 as a way to help the disparate elements of agriculture technology find common ground. The partner organizations were top technology and equipment manufacturers who were the most vested in where ag tech was headed.
It was a tricky tightrope walk getting the fierce competitors to sit down over coffee and donuts that first year and talk about the common ground they all shared, in between them shooting death stares at one another.
Back then, the big things we all agreed on were the need to fully understand the obstacles to technology adoption, and the need to put numbers to the value benefits of precision technology use.
Some 15 years later, we’re still at it. It’s a different day as far as the companies and their desire to connect and collaborate. While they are still aggressively competitive, they also have recognized the cries of the farmers and precision practitioners for collaboration and connectivity. We can’t make positive step changes in value-centric technology adoption if we’re not working together.
We changed the name to the PrecisionAg Alliance in order to better convey the goal of collaboration and compatibility. We also adjusted the focus of the group on the group itself, using quarterly gatherings of partners and guest presenters to deepen the value of participation.
At a 2021 quarterly meeting, the discussion began around the spring challenges of keeping up with grower demand for service, equipment, and parts in the wake of a spectacular 2020 growing season, solid farm income, and grower optimism not seen for several years.
It hearkened back to several years ago, when a farm income surge coincided with a technology investment blitz from outside the industry that brought a wave of big ideas to farmers. But needle on the overall value of tech adoption barely moved.
Today, we have another opportunity to get after the issue of demonstrating value. “What have we learned during the last five to 10 years?” said Ernie Chappell, President of EFC Systems and Alliance Partner, during the meeting. “Now is our time to get it right and provide value, because that is what drives demand. We have to make a difference, and we are staged collectively as an industry to do this.”
There will still be distractive forces, in particular with the emergence of carbon sequestration programs and the disparate demands they will place on data collection and aggregation if they indeed begin to take hold. But as farmers look to seize their piece of the market upturn (after so much time in the doldrums), the value opportunity is clearly before us.
Like Ernie said, let’s get it right.
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