{"id":12388,"date":"2018-02-22t22:58:03","date_gmt":"2018-02-22t22:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dpetrov.2create.studio\/planet\/wordpress\/farming-for-the-future-high-tech-help-minimizes-staff-waste\/"},"modified":"2023-05-24t16:43:20","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24t16:43:20","slug":"farming-future-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/farming-future-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"farming for the future: high-tech help minimizes staff, waste"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
when people think of the sorts of cutting-edge technologies that are changing the world, they tend to think of atom colliders, elon musk and silicon valley. the popular imagination may think of agriculture as mom and dad with a pitchfork, but today\u2019s nebraskan corn farm is probably the furthest thing from the average arm-chair-futurist\u2019s daydreams of farming reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and agriculture has some of the most important innovations in the past 100 years. after all, the world\u2019s population has exploded in the past century. agriculture has had to adapt rapidly to feeding a more crowded planet \u2013 and it must continue to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a study conducted by the united nations food and agriculture organization<\/a> found that a 70% increase in agricultural productivity will be necessary to keep the world\u2019s population fed in 2050, and meeting that demand is not just a matter of finding 70% more land to farm since most of the land on earth that can be used for farming already is being used. then there are the environmental concerns. the global green caucus worries that this increase in productivity will come at the cost of more water, more land, and higher emissions. add up all these woes and you\u2019ll come to find that we\u2019re placing a hefty bet on that nebraskan corn farm finding a way to increase productivity in the face of environmental concerns and a growing population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n maybe it\u2019s time to take a closer look at this allegedly low-tech operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n scott mcpheeters lives on his gothenburg, nebraska, family farm, bordered by breathtaking sandhills carved from the earth by glaciers and wind. the farm has around 3,000 acres of row crops. most of those 3,000 are dedicated to corn, and most of that corn goes into fritos. (if you eat a frito chip west of the mississippi, there\u2019s a better than good chance that the corn used to make it came from gothenburg.) mcpheeters is also keen on ethanol, and even serves as the vice chair on the state\u2019s ethanol board. he sings the praises of the biofuel to whomever is willing to listen, seeing it as a path to sustainability and american energy independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n the corn that comes back from ethanol production is used to make starches, sweeteners and road de-icer. there is talk of making ethanol out of switchgrass, since switchgrass grows up huge and has lots of sugar and could be more sustainable than corn-based ethanol<\/a>. but scientists haven\u2019t developed the enzymes necessary to ferment switchgrass into ethanol \u2014 at least not yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cit used to be that a farm would have \u2018a cow, a sow, a plow and an 80.\u2019 like\u2026 80 acres,\u201d mcpheeters says. \u201cso if it was true that there would be 80 acres per family\u2026 (and if) you had 3,000 acres, you would maybe need 40 people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n the 10 families of four it would have taken to run mcpheeters\u2019 farm a hundred years ago would have used horse-drawn equipment for planting and plowing, and a hand crank to strip field corn to be used for animal feed from the cob. during planting and harvests seasons, the work days may have been 14 to 18 hours long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n after world war ii, when many midwestern farmers adopted combines and tractors, the number of families necessary to run a mcpheeters\u2019-sized farm dropped to around five. that\u2019s about 20 people total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n today, including mcpheeters himself, five people work full time on his farm. two of those people are his sons, one his son-in-law. mcpheeters says he can operate with such a small team thanks to the technology that\u2019s now commonplace on farms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n drones, for instance, can be used to run diagnostics on central pivot irrigation systems \u2014 an enormous row of sprinklers that rotate around a central point, providing water to a circular portion of crops. mcpheeters said their drone could alert the team to plugged outlets in the pivots and detect problems with tires and drive shafts. meanwhile, the pivots themselves could be controlled via ipad. drones provide significantly better imagery than satellite technology, though there are still regulatory concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n using apps and ipads to monitor crops has become crucial for farmers, especially when it comes to water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n if you took all the water under nebraska and put it over nebraska, the whole state would roughly be a 42-foot-deep lake, according to math and hydrogeology. (don’t ask.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n but despite the state\u2019s position over the gargantuan ogallala aquifer, nebraska is bone-dry at the surface, with 23.6 inches of rain per year. compare that to arkansas (50.6 inches per year), rhode island (47.9 inches per year) or, if you\u2019re feeling dramatic, hawaii (63.7 inches per year) and the importance of efficient irrigation becomes apparent. over-watering is wasteful and can be damaging. under-watering can be a disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n to make sure every corner of the farm is properly watered, mcpheeters embeds 4-foot-long \u201csoil sensors\u201d deep in the ground. the sensors are connected to transmitters that communicate with a software called fieldwise. fieldwise displays a representation of the crops and details on their conditions on mcpheeters\u2019 computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n both the monitors and the transmitters are powered with energy from solar panels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n mcpheeters stresses that the transition from one family having \u201ca cow, a plow, a sow and an 80\u201d to one family managing 3,000 acres of highly productive farmland didn\u2019t come in a straight curve. a huge change came in the past 10 to 15 years, for instance, when global positioning became viable. with gps, mcpheeters can know exactly where a piece of equipment is in the field at any given moment and remotely ensure that it is doing what it needs to be doing, down to the square foot or an individual plant. seeding units can sequence off and on to prevent over-seeding. equipment can run on autopilot for 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n gps is proof positive that a single new technology can have a bombshell effect on how agriculture is practiced \u2014 and mcpheeters has an inkling as to what form the next seismic shift in farming might take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cyou may or may not want to hear this,\u201d mcpheeters said. \u201cbut i think it\u2019s genetic engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n within the gothenburg city limits is another plot of land that at first glance doesn\u2019t appear all that different from mcpheeters\u2019 family farm. upon closer inspection, it turns out to be a 324-acre science experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n the water utilization learning center is managed by monsanto, a biotechnology company that you\u2019ve probably either never heard of or have already made up your mind about. documentaries like food inc.<\/em> portray monsanto as the big bad wolf of big ag, but however you may feel about the company, it\u2019s clear that some of the most groundbreaking innovations in agriculture come from their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n