The saying goes “You are only as old as you feel.” In that case, I think I’ve discovered what must be the oldest group of people on the planet in terms of accepting the modern age — New York City cab drivers.
Recently, I ran across an article that told how the Taxi Workers Alliance — which represents thousands of New York taxi drivers — was threatening to stage a work slowdown/strike starting Oct. 1. The cause of this strike threat, you ask? The city’s new taxi inspection law requires that all 13,000 cabs in the Big Apple have GPS equipment, along with a touchscreen monitor system that allows passengers to pay by credit card or check news stories on the Internet. The Alliance claims since GPS devices can track cab movements, they represent an “invasion of the driver’s privacy.”
Reading this story, one thought came to mind — can you imagine what would have happened to the precision agriculture effort (and the ag community as a whole) if custom applicators rejected GPS systems on these same grounds? Chances are, properly servicing the recent uptick in corn acreage that the industry saw in 2007 would not have been possible using strictly traditional application methods.
In many ways, this is an acknowledgement of just how far ag retailers have come into the 21st century/information age. I remember when I first started covering this market back in 2000, I was told by many industry observers and co-workers that our readers liked to “stick with some of their tried and true methods of doing things” and were somewhat slow to warm to new technologies. Later that year, when our magazine was collecting survey forms for our Top 100 Retailers listing, I was surprised to find that around 80% of the retailers didn’t list e-mail addresses. Even more telling, 60% of the respondents that year filled in their forms using typewriters.
Luckily, the ag community has shown it is very open-minded about accepting change since then. At the recent InfoAg 2007 conference, the 600 or so attendees were all buzzing about new technologies such as ISOBUS and individual boom section control. At least one speaker registered pleasant surprise with the pace at which technology adoption by agriculture has moved.
“I am reminded about something that Bill Gates said about personal computers — he imagined a day when there would be a PC in every home,” said Iowa grower Clay Mitchell. “I’ve imagined a day when we would have an autosteering system on every tractor, and I’m amazed at just how fast that’s happened.”
In this sense, ag retailers should feel very young indeed. We are at the start of what could be the next precision agriculture movement — Precision 2.0, if you will — and this industry’s willingness to accept change will determine its ultimate course and success.
Speaking of change, readers will find that CropLife has upgraded its “Around Agriculture” section with this issue. Besides reporting the news, this re-designed section will offer analysis of key events, short interviews with industry pioneers, and describe what information can be found on our Web site.
Please let us know what you think of this “younger” section by dropping me a note at [email protected]. Enjoy!
