Alternative Fuels, Improved Technology Present New Opportunities for Agriculture
September 23, 2024 At the 2024 Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) annual meeting in early September, a pair of speakers from the industry spoke to attendees about the many new opportunities that agriculture has today – and what many of these might mean for the future of the marketplace.
As Harold Wolle, President of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) pointed out, those in the agricultural world should do all they can to plan for tomorrow.
“We can’t control the future anymore than we can control the weather,” said Wolle. “But we can make the right decisions to move forward, despite these uncontrollable factors.”
Wolle
With this in mind, he said, NCGA is looking to expand the ways its members (and all of agriculture) can tie into the move to alternative fuels such as ethanol and sustainable aviation fuel. “On one hand, we are working with government officials to expand these markets for our members,” he said. “And one of our priorities is the passage of the Next Generation Fuels Act.”
In addition to alternative fuels, another area where MACA speakers foresaw future opportunities for the marketplace was technology. According to Aaron Hunsinger, Demand Creation Manager, North America for One Smart Spray, technology has already provided agriculture with numerous yield gains and cost savings over the years. This would include automatic steering saving users more than 100 million gallons of fuel, variable rate fertilizer saving $80 per acre in proper placement, and variable rate seeding increasing yields by more than 2.9 bushels per acre.
And the next crop of technology improvements promises to continue this legacy, he said. “We have many new technology tools out there now,” said Hunsinger. “Things such as smart spraying, spot spraying, drones, and mechanical weeding. Some of these will be for broad acre crops, others for specialty crops, but they will all keep offering cost savings and yield increases for the industry.”
In particular, he noted, artificial intelligence (AI) technology holds a lot of promise for agriculture. “There are a lot of questions out there about AI right now, but it is definitely here to stay,” said Hunsinger. “And AI is going to be in agriculture, for sure.”
Hunsinger
Already, he said, companies working with AI systems for agriculture have worked with predictive modeling to determine what field pests/diseases might show up during the upcoming growing season. Furthermore, added Hunsinger, all the data that growers/ag retailers typically gather during each and every growing season can be more easily managed using AI programs.
“Every grower and service provider has all kinds of data collected each year,” he said. “With AI, we can use all these data points and identify where weed banks are and determine which/how much products we need to manage them.”
In the near future, Hunsinger told MACA attendees he expects to see more consolidation among ag technology companies. “There are too many companies out there right now,” he said. “Some will be bought out, some will fail, and some will partner with other companies. But in the end, this will result in fewer dominant players.”
Loading ...For the survivors in this ag technology race, Hunsinger predicted that the ones that thrive will be those that offer users a clear message. “They will have to effectively demonstrate value to the farmer and ag retailer,” he said. “That will be the market differentiation to success.”
This “clear messaging” model will also extend to the ag retailers themselves, predicted Hunsinger, especially when it comes to some of the newer technology offerings.
“We’ve conducted surveys of growers and most of them think that spot spray technology is something they need,” he said. “And more than 50% of growers said that if their retailer did not have spot spray machines, they would switch to ones that possessed the technology.”
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