Farming lies at the base of our society, of nearly every modern society and has for millennia. As such, it has had to adapt to a variety of unusual circumstances and major shifts in other industries. Techniques have had to be altered or invented to deal with different climates, threats from insects or just more people that need to be fed. Then there are the technological changes that have led to inventions like combines, sprinkler systems and improvements in food storage. The data revolution is the latest development that the farming world is trying to adapt to. How has that been going?
In some ways, very well. As the market went from the local village to the whole globe, farmers adapted to be more efficient and profitable, allowing them to sell various grains for every low prices that have helped to feed the world. Yet, many of these techniques are damaging to the environment and may be reaching their limits anyway. We’re going to be crossing the 9 billion people threshold in fairly short order and if trends continue, it will be difficult to produce enough food for all those people.
Unfortunately, farming is both hard work and not nearly as profitable as one might think. Farmers tend to operate on razor thin profit margins, relying on sheer volume in order to make a living. Most of them don’t have the spare time or energy to devote to data analysis in order to find more efficient means of production. Instead, they either rely on their own understanding of nature or the tried and surprisingly often true Farmers’ Almanac. Yet, as the population grows, farmers large and small are going to need to make better use of data not just so they can adapt but also for the good of everyone else.
Fortunately, that is getting easier with the rise of Bluetooth technology being embedded in everything, even tractors. Farmers will better be able to track the efficiency of their operations and learn where they can make improvements. A largely data driven operation can also be an aid in identifying trends before they really take off. How so? By going directly to the people who make use of their products.
After all, while most farmers sell to grocery stores, it is still individuals that are buying things from them. As tastes and preferences change, people will buy more or less of a given item from the produce section. Any data the farmer gets from the store is going to be a lagging indicator. If you wait until the stores stop ordering so many avocados, that trend is already over and you might find yourself with a big crop of the mushy green fruit to get rid of. That’s why even farmers should sign up for TARTLE. They can log in and interact with people across the country and even the world. In doing so, the farmers would be getting direct input from the men and women who ultimately buy and consume their products. That way, they could see the move away from avocados even before it became apparent in the stores. Armed with that knowledge different crops could be planted and harvested before avocado is no longer in demand, allowing them to get ahead of the curve and minimize any losses.
Environmental impact can also be minimized. By studying the data, farmers can help find better ways to replenish the soil than using fertilizers. Better planting cycles can be utilized. Alternative ways of making use of or disposing of inevitable waste can be identified and instituted. It’s by making extensive use of data that farmers can learn how to take principles of small farming and apply them on a larger scale.
This information can also be gained by interacting with people willing to share their data at TARTLE. New techniques can be shared. The effect of different soils on growing different crops can be researched without any sort of third party filters being applied to skew the results or the conclusions reached. If that sounds good to you as a farmer, whether small or large, sign up at TARTLE.co and take advantage of the opportunities we offer for different people to learn from each other and build a better and sustainable world.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
Farming lies at the base of our society, of nearly every modern society and has for millennia. As such, it has had to adapt to a variety of unusual circumstances and major shifts in other industries.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to TARTLE cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby where humanities steps into the future and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:19):
Yeah, Jason...
Jason Rigby (00:27):
I want to know what love is.
Alexander McCaig (00:29):
I want you to show me.
Jason Rigby (00:32):
I was thinking of love.
Alexander McCaig (00:33):
I don't know why that song stuck... I mean, I love food.
Jason Rigby (00:36):
Right. And I love farming.
Alexander McCaig (00:38):
And I love farming.
Jason Rigby (00:39):
Cool. I like going to a farm.
Alexander McCaig (00:40):
Farming really... Ah, it's a task that really just pays back.
Jason Rigby (00:46):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (00:46):
You don't really farm to get rich and frankly, you just do it because you know, you've got to support a local community or if you're a huge farmer, you're doing it because you got to feed beef cattle because that's feeding the rest of the US.
Jason Rigby (00:59):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (01:00):
Farming is interesting. And we think about advanced agriculture and like farming data. When you go back to things like the Farmers' Almanac.
Jason Rigby (01:08):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (01:10):
You walk by it in stores. You really don't think twice about it.
Jason Rigby (01:13):
No you don't.
Alexander McCaig (01:14):
But that thing acts as the Bible for these farmers and it's data in print format for them to reference. Farmers can't... This article talks about they don't have the extra funds to hire a scientific team to keep up the health of the greens on a golf course.
Jason Rigby (01:32):
Yeah. It's crazy, two million farmers in the United States.
Alexander McCaig (01:36):
Yeah. There's two million of which 40% of the land mass here in the United States goes towards farming, of which 70% of that goes towards cattle grazing feed.
Jason Rigby (01:47):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (01:48):
And that leaves us with what?
Jason Rigby (01:51):
Well, the nine billion and the article talks about this, the nine billion is going to lead to nine billion populations could lead to a 70% increase in food production.
Alexander McCaig (02:03):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (02:03):
So we're going to have to increase it 70% From what we're at now.
Alexander McCaig (02:05):
The only way you could sustain that. And I'm not trying to be evangelical about this, but that would be to stop any cattle farming altogether. Because the majority of our resource land in the US goes towards farming resources. That is how it goes towards raising cattle. You can't support the world on that.
Jason Rigby (02:24):
Yeah. I think the whole industry in and of itself is going to have to take a step back and look and say, "How can we... Used this data that we're acquiring?" Because the tractors are coming with IoT devices on them.
Alexander McCaig (02:41):
And you pick John Deere combine tractors.
Jason Rigby (02:44):
It's all... The data is coming in.
Alexander McCaig (02:46):
Yes. GPS track. It's got all that good stuff. And think about farming is a... It takes so much pre-planning.
Jason Rigby (02:52):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (02:53):
I got to plan my crops. I got to plan my stall rotation. There's such a lead time before the product hits a shell for a restaurant.
Jason Rigby (03:00):
Even sell time.
Alexander McCaig (03:02):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (03:02):
I mean, you have to anticipate how much crop you're going to yield and then turn around and anticipate how much you're going to sell it for and what it's going for at the market.
Alexander McCaig (03:09):
Yeah. Or on top of that maybe you need financing.
Jason Rigby (03:11):
Right?
Alexander McCaig (03:11):
You go to the bank, it's like, "listen, I have this much of an asset. Can you finance me against this?"
Jason Rigby (03:15):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (03:15):
And they're like, "Well, I don't... Would you have any data supporting that?" So, farmers run into an interesting predicament. And so when we look at a growing population and inefficiencies in farming in general, we have to find ways to tie in data more effectively than what the Farmers' Almanac was doing. You have to look at nutrient soil content. You have to look at your crop rotations, your habits with doing so what things work the best, what type of pesticide or non pesticide farming works?
Jason Rigby (03:44):
Yeah, the food safety.
Alexander McCaig (03:47):
Analyze it against costs, so you do... Yeah, food safety. So you doing all those things internally for yourself as a farmer to make you more efficient, and drive those costs down. But then on top of that, you can preplan your farming because if you're a smart farmer or a coalition of farmers, you could go then get data from individuals know exactly what the purchasing habits are going to be. So from a sense of advanced agriculture, they can be extremely proactive and understanding what that crop life cycle is going to look like before it actually reaches that end person.
Jason Rigby (04:17):
Yeah. And they said... This is interesting. However, the global agriculture industry that... You noticed that were just global not just United States as a whole has a long way to travel before it reaches the technology maturity needed to generate, store, analyze, and deploy data solutions.
Alexander McCaig (04:32):
Yeah. Which is really interesting because, we all get that... Well, not all of us. But I'm just saying in a generalized sense, when I go by farms, it gives me a nostalgic feel. You see the old red tractor out there or green if it's a John Deere, when it's tilling the land and things are moving slow, but that's just the process that's happened for thousands of years.
Jason Rigby (04:53):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (04:54):
Whether you're using cattle before in a plow or doing things by hand, not much has changed in farming. So, in advancement in farming itself is going to be really dependent on those efficiencies of the actual workflow to generate a crop and then transport that crop. So that major drastic changes... We did a show the other day that all companies are tech companies.
Jason Rigby (05:20):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (05:21):
Farming needs to step up to the play with that.
Jason Rigby (05:23):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (05:23):
And there has to be efficient ways for even less capital intensive farming for those people who are trying to make it work in smaller communities to be able to plant in their crops also. So it's not just being... Having all their own IoT data but understanding what their in consumer is.
Jason Rigby (05:41):
Yeah and I think a good thing that we're seeing is this article talks about VC investments in the agtech space has increased 75% since 2014.
Alexander McCaig (05:50):
Well, it seems like an obvious investment because if you have a growing population.
Jason Rigby (05:54):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (05:54):
And you know that technology makes things efficient and farming is horribly inefficient right now. And there's a huge waiting period. That's something you should put your money into, because there's so much room for growth on both sides for the people receiving your product and for farming itself as an industry.
Jason Rigby (06:10):
Yeah. And this company, one of the... This is a Forbes article, but the person that wrote the article owns a company called... I'm going to make sure I find it right here, because I think it's really important. They have a hops farm in Eastern Washington state, which is interesting. Yeah. We know how the hops is just boomed because of all the... But what they're talking about is agtech as becoming a bigger interest for venture capital companies like Yield Lab, iSelect Fund has also... And the global pandemic and West Coast wildfires have added urgency to answering questions about food security and safety.
Alexander McCaig (06:47):
Yeah, because if-
Jason Rigby (06:47):
Security is a big word.
Alexander McCaig (06:49):
... Yeah, food security. Honestly, storage of food.
Jason Rigby (06:52):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:52):
And so if you look at advanced agriculture grade of pick the crop, they're like, "How do I keep it good for a long period of time before it actually needs to go into a store?"
Jason Rigby (07:00):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (07:00):
We have so much backup stuff in storage, then we end up freezing it. Just like one simple instance. I'm from Massachusetts. So Massachusetts for a long time ocean spray cranberry-
Jason Rigby (07:12):
You guys don't need freezers in Massachusetts.
Alexander McCaig (07:14):
No.
Jason Rigby (07:14):
You just set it outside.
Alexander McCaig (07:15):
It's fucking freezing out there. But what we found is... Not what we, but the farmers found is that because they saturated the market so much with cranberries, they're like, "Man, every time we farm these things, a lot of them are going to waste." So the individuals because the price dropped on them precipitously. Over in the great lakes region, they started doing their own mass farming of cranberries and they freeze them all in cold storage. So it just crippled these other farmers. So, but they advanced in technology in preservation in understanding the process for that farming. So it's actually preserved them in a longer life cycle. And it's actually, nixed out a lot of the smaller farmers that were doing that like I owned my own cranberry bog and I clean it every year in harvest the cranberries.
Jason Rigby (08:03):
Yeah. I have frozen bag of cranberries from Costco in my freezer.
Alexander McCaig (08:07):
Yeah. It's frozen.
Jason Rigby (08:08):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (08:08):
Yeah. And it's a big deal. And so the farmers that we've seen that have adopted data-driven approaches and advanced technology for their farming, they're the ones that are starting to flourish.
Jason Rigby (08:20):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (08:20):
And they're the ones that will be more well-suited and flexible to the growing population and its demands. And so if you knew ahead of time that everyone's switching over to almond milk, stop having a dairy farm, start planting almond trees.
Jason Rigby (08:35):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (08:36):
But they had no way to survey the market. So they feel that in such a lagging indicator. And so that's just not the most efficient way that you should be doing things.
Jason Rigby (08:44):
Yeah. And I think whenever we look at tech and we look at farming there's this idea that, we've been doing this for... And you can see it in the retail space in certain industries, but we've been doing this for 100 of years and it's been done this way and it's been just fine.
Alexander McCaig (09:02):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (09:03):
And not understanding... I mean, we talked about this the other day when we talked about retail, not understanding that online is here to stay. And so for us to become even more efficient, because I think on the back end side of it once the product is sold, the food is sold. All of that is... I guarantee you Walmart and Kroger's and all them, they're extremely efficient running with very thin profit margins.
Alexander McCaig (09:31):
Yeah, absolutely. And they don't want to have any shelf wastes.
Jason Rigby (09:33):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:34):
It's all about that inventory turnover, specially with food.
Jason Rigby (09:36):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:36):
Because it's just such a massive waste product. So if you can properly plan that across the supply chain for farming.
Jason Rigby (09:44):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:45):
That's extremely beneficial. And if a farmer says that "We can predictively tell you what's going on here." And they can come back and then put that data against what Walmart is saying. You've got a winning combination.
Jason Rigby (09:55):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:55):
Because I got analytics from the farm and I have analytics from inside the store. And they can move that back and forth. Walmart could buy it from the farmers and the farmers can buy that information from Walmart.
Jason Rigby (10:03):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (10:05):
And then, the pair of them can buy that information from people who actually eat the stuff.
Jason Rigby (10:07):
Yes. Where... The people that eat the stuff can go to-
Alexander McCaig (10:12):
tartle.co.
Jason Rigby (10:13):
... Yep and sell.
Alexander McCaig (10:14):
And they can sell data packets that talk about the behaviors around food, their preferences, what they choose to shop with anything like that, because that information extremely beneficial to a growing population. Because the old ways that we've seen for farmers, that work for 550 million people on this planet.
Jason Rigby (10:30):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (10:30):
It's not going to work for eight billion.
Jason Rigby (10:33):
Yeah. And then you also have different areas, different climates, different soil issues. And then you have different farming techniques that may be... I mean, there's so many variables to it. The way that they farm cattle in Brazil could be totally different than the way they do it in Texas.
Alexander McCaig (10:50):
I know how they do it in Brazil, they lop down rainforest.
Jason Rigby (10:52):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (10:53):
And then they put cattle grass grazing lands. And then that destroys our atmosphere because the cows are burping and farting and then releasing the methane. And then we got nothing to saturate that with the rainforest, it lacks its canopy, bio adversity drops off. And then we got a big old systemic issue. So we need to be smart.
Jason Rigby (11:10):
Yes, exactly. And I think data helps us with that process.
Alexander McCaig (11:14):
Yeah. And again, data agnostic. It tells you, "You know you shouldn't be doing that."
Jason Rigby (11:17):
Yeah. And then hopefully they'll make the lab steaks and there'll be safe for you.
Alexander McCaig (11:21):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (11:22):
The steak, that's made of-
Alexander McCaig (11:23):
Who cares. I don't care. If you print a steak out whenever.
Jason Rigby (11:27):
You need printer.
Alexander McCaig (11:28):
If you need that fleshy thing in between your-
Jason Rigby (11:30):
Stakes.
Alexander McCaig (11:31):
... Yeah. Remember in Star Trek, they just print the food out, the replicator, whatever it was.
Jason Rigby (11:36):
Yeah I love that.
Alexander McCaig (11:37):
That's super advanced agriculture.
Jason Rigby (11:39):
Yeah, exactly.
Alexander McCaig (11:40):
I don't even have to grow it. I just print it out.
Jason Rigby (11:41):
Yeah. You just push the button. I liked the room where they could go in and they would do training and stuff like military training, but you can't go anywhere.
Alexander McCaig (11:48):
It'd be like a hologram.
Jason Rigby (11:49):
Yeah, it was like a holographic room. And they would be there in the desert or they're at some really cool... In then they would be in there with their little... Their weapons were so small.
Alexander McCaig (11:59):
Why do you have to be large? Large doesn't condone damage. COVID is tiny.
Jason Rigby (12:05):
Yes. Yeah exactly.
Alexander McCaig (12:06):
It's microscopic.
Jason Rigby (12:07):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (12:07):
How much damage did that do?
Jason Rigby (12:08):
I don't know Alex.
Alexander McCaig (12:11):
I tell you what, it did a lot of damage to me. Did a lot of damage to me.
Jason Rigby (12:15):
Well, speaking of damage, we're damaging the show.
Alexander McCaig (12:17):
Yeah. Because we're damaged goods. We're bad produce.
Jason Rigby (12:21):
We are out.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Thank you for listening to TARTLE cast with your hosts Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby. Where humanity steps into the future and the source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
