Engineer Farmers

Engineer Farmers

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
High-tech farming. I was talking with Jake Hull, from the marketing department of Valley Irrigation and he was telling me about all of the whizbang new technology that his company makes in order to make irrigating so much more convenient and efficient. But tablets, Internet and Wi-Fi, smart phones came up again and again and I made an observation. "it's almost like a farmer has to be an engineer. Well, I don't disagree with you that it has become a standard, technology and farming has become the new standard. I don't think you can walk onto a farm and just be amazed that the farmer has a smart phone whereas 5 to 10 years ago that was a big deal...'Oh. that Farmer has a smart phone not a flip phone?" Now it is expected. They want it. Essentially this is driven by the wants and desires of the farmer. From the irrigation standpoint, farmers don't want to have to walk all the way out into the field anymore. They don't want their life to be controlled by the pivot, they want the pivot to control itself so they can live their life. It's supply and demand. Farmers want technology to make their lives easier. When we were designing our panels, we tested them with actual growers. We went out into the field and did multiple tests. Last growing season we had several growers who actually had these panels installed. They were temporary panels trying to out the kinks but they worked amazingly well and all of these growers came back with glowing results saying how easy they were to use. We wanted to give them the technology but we did not want them to feel like they had to be engineers."
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