Farming technology and the IoT is constantly improving. While the basic design of the modern harvester has been around since the 19th century, its design has undergone a variety of improvements over the decades since. The latest is the inclusion of technology that monitors the speed of the machine and how quickly it picks up crops and other variables. Essentially, John Deere and others have turned their tractors into Internet of Things (IOT) devices.
Such additions are becoming increasingly common. John Deere even has a head of technology now. The reasons for this are simple. Farming like everything else is a highly competitive industry which means farmers are always trying to find new ways to squeeze a few extra dollars out of their crops. Combine that with a growing global population and increasing concern for the environment and farmers are perhaps under more pressure than anyone else to find new ways to use data to improve their operations.
What does this data tell farmers? Most obviously, it tells them how well their machines are running. If a combine’s fuel efficiency goes down or it deviates even slightly from a straight line, it can be an early indicator of a mechanical problem that it would be a lot cheaper to fix sooner than later. It can also tell you how well the crop is doing. If there is more or less wheat in a given acre than the next one, it can be indicative of a difference in soil quality, amount of sunlight, or even water distribution. Compared with data from previous years, it can track how well the soil overall is doing. Should there be a small drop in production, a farmer can check to see if his field is deficient in any way. The beauty of using data taken directly from the farmer’s machines is that even small deviations can be tracked, identifying issues long before all but the most experienced of farmers would notice them.
The downside of this is that often the farmers themselves don’t have access to the data that they are generating. It is far too common that the manufacturers are the only ones directly getting data from the machines they make. Typically, farmers see none of the data from the machine they bought. Unless this is your first time here, you know how we at TARTLE feel about that. We think everyone, especially farmers who grow the food we all depend on, should own the data they generate. Think about it, does it make any sense that a farmer spends tens of thousands of dollars on a tractor filled with sensors, do all the work with the tractor, and not own the data collected by those sensors? Can you imagine if the manufacturer actually sold the farmer the data he was already generating? It doesn’t seem exactly fair does it? If the manufacturer were to provide a full data analysis in return for some money that would be different, though it should still be the farmer’s choice to do so.
That’s exactly why both, the farmer and the manufacturer should sign up with TARTLE. That way, the farmer gets full control over all the data he is generating and can choose whether or not he would like to sell it to the manufacturer, the county he lives in, or an independent analysis firm. Or all of them. In this way, the famer isn’t getting taken advantage of, the manufacturer still gets what they need to build a better tractor in the next production run, and more data becomes available to third parties who would benefit from it, without shelling out a premium to the manufacturer. TARTLE and its members can literally help bring a little fairness and equity to the farming industry.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
