Growers, Do You Have the Tools To Navigate a Changing Climate?
By Adam Koeppel, Co-Founder & CEO @Agrology
Climate change is impacting farmers at an alarming rate. Growers have always been aware of the interconnection between climate and crops. Now, the impact of threats and how they connect is intensifying. Drought leads to increased pest and disease risk. Abnormal late-season precipitation causes increased growth. Tall grass leads to brush-fueled wildfires. Late season frosts and extended heat waves damage entire crops.
Unfortunately for growers it’s no longer business as usual. The interconnectedness, combined with a changing climate, makes farming much more complex. More expensive. More difficult to manage.
Given this complexity, why are there different technologies to manage each threat? Sensors for water and irrigation. A separate weather station for extreme weather. A grower can end up with six different systems to manage six different issues. This costs more and is tough to manage. In addition, the systems produce too much data to process and don’t report in an easy, consistent way.
Growers need real-time information and predictions on the ground, in the canopy and in the air. Technology that takes into account the interconnectedness of farming. Drought, irrigation, extreme temperatures, pest and disease outbreaks, spraying, smoke taint, and more. One system that delivers GroundTruth data and reports via an easy-to-use app. After all, what’s the point of pulling data out of a vineyard if only an expert can understand it?
At Agrology, this is our motivation in developing our fully holistic system. We created a platform that handles interconnected data sets, predicts future outcomes, and delivers data in a format that’s easy to understand.
Luckily, I have some incredibly smart people on my team. They took my initial idea one step further by applying Machine Learning (ML) to data and developing predictive models. That’s how Agrology was able to empower growers to understand what’s happening in real time and receive threat predictions three days out.
Agrology customers use data every single day to make tough decisions. Sometimes days before an actual threat. This is why we believe Predictive Agriculture is the tool for farmers to overcome climate change.
Keep in mind that to solve a problem as fast moving as climate change, we always have to be extremely ambitious. Our team constantly asks: What’s next for growers? How are they going to keep up with climate change?
Which brings us to the next phase in this fight: Helping farmers take steps to actually fighting climate change.
Yes, another ambitious undertaking. Yet, something we are already working on. Agrology customers asked us for help in taking more sustainable actions on their land. They asked us to join them on a journey into data-filled, regenerative agriculture. And we said yes.
Today, Agrology is developing a trail of data to prove regenerative farming practices work. We are working to provide growers with the data that proves that carbon is going back into the soil.
Our team is developing carbon and sustainability monitoring and reporting (launching soon!) We’re building carbon and sustainability features into our platform. These features will prove carbon neutrality and carbon negative products at the data level. And we’re advancing this technology quickly.
Why? Because like growers, we see the interconnectedness and we want to be part of the solution. We hope you’ll join us.