Are Farmers AgTech Guinea Pigs?

Over the Holiday’s I read a Linkedin post from a farmer in Australia: The AgTech Revolution is a Glitch.

The farmer highlighted multiple frustrations with agtech, equipment manufacturers and equipment dealers.

I empathize with farmer frustration in using some new products and services — particularly when there are legitimately some poorly operated and executed products and services. The incremental stress and hassle added to an already time constrained and pressure packed part of the year is understandably infuriating.

However, I do think it is important to put a few things into context.

Ill highlight two sections from the post that I think are important to level-set.

The first:

The AgTech Revolution is a Glitch

I think all of us would agree, products should work when they are taken to the farm.

The reality is that implementing perfect technology from the get-go is very hard.

Farming doesn’t occur in a closed loop, low stakes consumer environment, often affording numerous iterations to get product bugs out.

In diverse, dusty, and unconnected environments, like in farming, it is even more challenging.

However, one thing I would call out is that even what he cites as “standard” (guidance and sectional control) is still “ag technology.”

AgTech has been an incredible driver of everything a farmer uses today, not to mention the division of labour more broadly.

Had Linkedin been around in 1996, I am certain there would have been some similar complaints towards auto steer, or new seeding technology systems.

Every technology ever implemented on a farm has likely had some sort of short-term pain — whether a learning curve, short coming in usability or purely the inertia that is created by doing something the same way for 30 years and then having to change.

Change is hard.

Over Christmas I read the book Innovation and It’s Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies by Calestous Juma (good book, effectively an ag and food innovation book as 6 of the 9 technology case studies are related to agriculture and food — from coffee, to GMOs, to cold storage technology, margarine, and more are all covered).

One dominant emphasis was Farm Mechanization and farmer apprehension, providing another lens on top of what was shared in another great book, Tractor Wars.

In the Farm Mechanization section, two quotes stood out to me surrounding tractor adoption and the applicability to technology on farm today.

The first:

Note the last sentence. Farmers thought the technology was brought to the farm pre-maturely.

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