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.
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.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to TARTLE cast with your hosts Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.
Jason Rigby (00:22):
Alex.
Alexander McCaig (00:23):
Yeah, Jason.
Jason Rigby (00:24):
There are fractals everywhere.
Alexander McCaig (00:26):
Fractals.
Jason Rigby (00:27):
Yeah. They're everywhere.
Alexander McCaig (00:28):
You're telling me there are things within things.
Jason Rigby (00:30):
Things within things.
Alexander McCaig (00:31):
I just keep dividing down more and more, and it's just an image within an image.
Jason Rigby (00:36):
And such is the story.
Alexander McCaig (00:39):
Such is the story within a story.
Jason Rigby (00:41):
This is an interesting agricultural data story. Now don't tune us out yet.
Alexander McCaig (00:45):
No, this is actually quite interesting because from the stance that farming is the equipment used in farming is becoming very IOT driven, very connected to the net, and it's generating a lot of data. Helps with planning and efficiencies, but there is a... all things are good things are a double-edged sword. So let's give a little bit of intro for what is happening, the background with advanced agriculture.
Jason Rigby (01:15):
Yeah. So, I mean, we all know, and this is a Forbes article, but they're talking about the harvester has been around since the 1800's. We know it's just sucking up corn soybeans, other crops. And then in there, these IOT devices are beaming data to its manufacturers as it's moving, it's collecting, not just with GPS has, but it's classing the volume, the amount that it's going in there and sucking up, and it's going what's the spacing between them? What is it per an acre? On a sister machine called a planner algorithms adjust the distribution of seeds based on which part of the soils have in the past year performed best.
Alexander McCaig (01:52):
So if the sensor... the combines going across the land, it's pulling up all this data, it's like, Ooh, that was a good hall right there, just in that small spot. There must be something good with the soil. So it starts analyzing that data and the crop yield. And then it's like, we need to continue to change the variation, maybe the spacing and the crop in that specific area, so that doing those adjustments, the crop can pull in as much water and nutrients as it needs without sapping out other crops relatively around it.
Jason Rigby (02:18):
Yeah. And, and also the sprayer has an algorithm on it that can recognize a weed and spray it.
Alexander McCaig (02:23):
Yeah. Which is-
Jason Rigby (02:24):
So it's like...
Alexander McCaig (02:26):
Because you're not walking out in the farm field with a big pump canister and going-
Jason Rigby (02:29):
For miles and miles.
Alexander McCaig (02:30):
And just like giving dollars back to Monsanto, and what's cool about that, back in the day the Austrians came up with this really neat ratio for tree farming. It's called the Faustmann ratio, a little bit of a side note. The Faustmann ratio told them, okay, the ground, I can only yield so much lumber depending on the acreage and the health of that acreage. So there's a ratio between trees planted and acreage space, and if I over-plant past a certain threshold on that ratio, yes, I may get a higher yield this year, but it's actually going to deteriorate the land further on and my yields will continue to drop, even though it's a nice little spike. So the Austrians realized a long time ago that there's a maintenance of trees, their positioning and their yield within a specific area and how those are harvested, which I think is really interesting.
Alexander McCaig (03:21):
And you can... point in case you can use that ratio also in finance to realize how debt erodes the financial markets, but that's separate thing, but it's interesting. So now-
Jason Rigby (03:33):
That's another fractal.
Alexander McCaig (03:34):
Yeah, it's another fractal, but there are good stories. And I can see that there was some machine learning done giving you an ad there on that thing for the-
Jason Rigby (03:40):
Yeah, did you see that?
Alexander McCaig (03:43):
I saw it. But that goes a little bit further, so let's talk about those manufacturers real quick.
Jason Rigby (03:46):
It's very interesting. So you have John Deere [inaudible 00:03:52], and these collect data from all around the world. Think stability for these and the article says bulky machines with they are, these-
Alexander McCaig (03:56):
They're big combines. If you go to the large... I've never been to one. I've been next to combines in person. Huge tires, big machines, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and farmers like, that's the next thing I got to get because I don't have to be out there. I can just GPS say, this is the property of my land combine goes out there and does all the harvesting by itself. So there's one machine that's just generating swaths of data, but there's this sort of things take a little turn. If the farmers putting in that labor, the farmers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this machine. Why is the benefit of all the data it generates going back to John Deere?
Jason Rigby (04:33):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (04:33):
Why does John Deere get to analyze the globe and then make all the profits off that data?
Jason Rigby (04:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Alexander McCaig (04:39):
John Deere didn't do any... they manufactured their thing, but now they're extending beyond that saying, "Oh, we're just going to dip into what your device is transmitting."
Jason Rigby (04:47):
Yeah. And I think this is the story with the smart farming. This is the story when we're on this revolution of it becoming so techie, now we have fights over data.
Alexander McCaig (05:02):
Yeah. And listen, John Deere doesn't need another buck. The farmers need another buck in all truth. So that data that's being generated, the farmer deserves to own that. Okay. If John Deere wants to sell a separate program that says, "Okay, you come to us, we'll analyze it for you and give you some feedback." But for John Deere to say that we own that data, and just because those machines are out there and it's collecting and we're doing on your behalf, that doesn't mean they get control over it.
Jason Rigby (05:31):
No. And listen to this, I thought this was interesting, vice-president of AGCO, Seth Crawford said this, "What's been holding us back for a while has been the inability to crunch data fast enough to work at the level of individual plants, as opposed to say whole acres or fields." Crawford explained now with all the technology that's come along and the processing speeds, we're able to operate in much more real time.
Alexander McCaig (05:52):
Yeah. And that's really cool. They're using that Cloud infrastructure to manage that processing for them. And there's no reason those business intelligence tools shouldn't be in the hands of the farmer itself.
Jason Rigby (06:03):
Yeah. Listen to this, Deere earlier this year, John Deere, created a new rule that of chief technology officer of the company says that it now views itself as a technology company.
Alexander McCaig (06:12):
Of course they do, because they realize how much money is in that data.
Jason Rigby (06:15):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:17):
That's the farmers-
Jason Rigby (06:18):
We don't manufacture tractors anymore. We're a data-
Alexander McCaig (06:19):
What are you talking about? Your tractors or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then you're also going to rake the farmers for their data too, that they generated? Don't double dip.
Jason Rigby (06:27):
No.
Alexander McCaig (06:28):
They're deserving of the things they create and that's their value. That's their asset. You know what it reminds me of? You go into a hospital, medical devices. So here's a little interesting tidbit. If you... like a blood pressure machine, all those things are IOT. They're all hooked up. But you can't get that medical data because of HIPAA. But what you can do is you can backdoor it. And this is what a lot of manufacturers do. They backdoor all the data saying, "Oh, we're just doing diagnostic testing." So that means you get all this health data on these people on how the machines are working.
Jason Rigby (07:07):
Oh Lord.
Alexander McCaig (07:08):
So they've found a way to circumvent HIPAA with diagnostic testing and just ingesting all the data. What do you think they do with that? You don't need all that to diagnostically test. We know exactly what you're doing. You're scanning all your systems in all the hospitals that they're in, and you're just jacking all that data for free.
Jason Rigby (07:24):
Yeah. Listen, I mean, we're harping on John Deere, but there's all of the large equipment contractors are doing this.
Alexander McCaig (07:28):
There's a bunch of them.
Jason Rigby (07:29):
But sensitive to suggestions that they're infringing on privacy. The largest equipment makers said they don't share farmers' data with third parties unless farmers give permission.
Alexander McCaig (07:38):
Unless the farmer gives permission.
Jason Rigby (07:41):
Click accept, accept, accept.
Alexander McCaig (07:41):
Yeah. Do this. And so what it's saying is you bought the tractor. Oh, you signed up for the John Deere app? You've already given it all away.
Jason Rigby (07:46):
Yeah. Exactly.
Alexander McCaig (07:47):
What a classic-
Jason Rigby (07:49):
And what farmers are worried about is farmers by nature are highly protective of their land and business.
Alexander McCaig (07:54):
Yeah. They're protective of their land, their business. Listen, they're pushed on pennies, so they need every penny they can get. John Deere does not need every penny it can get. And I'm just using them as an example because they're one of the leaders out there, but come on.
Jason Rigby (08:07):
Yeah. And it says, contracts to buy or rent big machines are many pages long, and the language unclear, especially since some of the underlying legal concepts regarding the sharing and collecting of agricultural data are still evolving.
Alexander McCaig (08:18):
There are farmers not contract lawyers.
Jason Rigby (08:20):
On one 2019 paper puts it, the lack of transparency and clarity around issues such as data ownership, portability, privacy, trust and liability in the commercial relationships governing smart farming are contributing to farmers reluctance to engage in the widespread sharing of their farm data that smart farming facilitates.
Alexander McCaig (08:38):
So if that smart farming is growing and they don't want to share it, there's one way to incentivize a farmer to get it off of their books and onto yours or servers, whatever you want to call it. Farmer goes to turtle and you do too. And John Deere buys that data from the farmer, not says we own it because you signed a fricking contract that you couldn't read.
Jason Rigby (08:56):
Yeah. And I think the collect aggregation and the sharing of the data has to be done in a safe manner that benefits humanity. And there's only one way that that gets accomplished.
Alexander McCaig (09:08):
And that's through the model designed through the TARTLE marketplace.
Jason Rigby (09:11):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:11):
It's only for the benefit of both parties.
Jason Rigby (09:13):
TARTLE.co.
Alexander McCaig (09:15):
Yeah, .co. Get started, sign up, super easy.
Jason Rigby (09:18):
So if you're in the ag industry, we'd love to have conversations with you. If you're in the ag industry with data, if you're an executive from John Deere or any of these manufacturers, we'd love to have you come on the podcast. This is really... And I like farms just in general.
Alexander McCaig (09:32):
I love farms.
Jason Rigby (09:33):
I love tractors. I love all that. So I would love to get more into this. I think it's really cool. It's just something that we're seeing. And I would... or a farmer that has a large farm. I'd love to talk with them and get their perspective of what's happening.
Alexander McCaig (09:49):
Oh, absolutely.
Jason Rigby (09:50):
And see... That would be great.
Alexander McCaig (09:52):
And then once you educate them on the benefit that's available. Like, look at all this data you're generating. You know this is extremely valuable.
Jason Rigby (09:57):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (09:58):
And maybe through some sort of analysis, if these larger outfits are analyzing all these farmers, maybe they go to the farmers and like, "Would you all be interested in coalescing together, coming together because we've seen there's efficiencies if there's a combination of your efforts."
Jason Rigby (10:12):
Yeah. And we will probably by the end of this week... Today is what, January the fourth?
Alexander McCaig (10:16):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Rigby (10:17):
So we'll have... And I want to make sure we mentioned this to our people. If you want to communicate with Alex and I, you could send us an email at podcast@TARTLE.co.
Alexander McCaig (10:24):
podcast@TARTLE.co. You can comment on YouTube. We respond to everything and we'll probably even make a direct video if you ask for it.
Jason Rigby (10:34):
Yeah. But if you're a farmer, if you're into data, especially ag data, we would love to be able to bring you on the show. We could just call you. So just podcast@TARTLE.co. Drop us a little note.
Alexander McCaig (10:44):
podcast@TARTLE.co.
Jason Rigby (10:47):
Or if you knows somebody that's an expert in the data industry and you'd like to have them on the show, we'd love to have a talk with you.
Alexander McCaig (10:52):
And listen, we're not going to go easy on you. Not at all.
Jason Rigby (10:59):
Farmer, we promise we won't get into the rainforest discussion.
Alexander McCaig (11:01):
No rainforest discussion.
Jason Rigby (11:02):
We're going to talk about data.
Alexander McCaig (11:03):
We'll talk just about data.
Jason Rigby (11:05):
And I want to see what their perspective is, the farmer's perspective is.
Alexander McCaig (11:09):
I would love that.
Jason Rigby (11:10):
If they realize what type of data they're giving.
Alexander McCaig (11:14):
We have our own perspective. But maybe they don't have a perspective and we open them up to it and they're like, crap.
Jason Rigby (11:19):
Start a movement. I love that.
Alexander McCaig (11:21):
A farmer movement.
Jason Rigby (11:22):
Take back your data, people.
Alexander McCaig (11:23):
Hold on. What was that movement? Ah, the Sage Brush... Sage Brush Rebellion? I don't know. Something happens with farmers. Farmers are interesting.
Jason Rigby (11:32):
I love them.
Alexander McCaig (11:33):
Well, thanks guys for the food. Appreciate it.
Jason Rigby (11:34):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Thank you for listening to TARTLE cast with your hosts, Alexandra McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and the source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
