Just above and to the right of farmer Thad Becker’s steering wheel in his John Deere combine is a screen about the size of an iPad.
“I've got readouts on yield, current yield and current moisture of the crop … how many acres I've done, how many total bushels I've harvested in the field,” Becker said. “And I've got a lot of other options too.”
Becker is harvesting this year’s soybean crop in a farm field near Mexico, Missouri. After turning the massive machine around at the end of each row, he selects an option from the screen beside him and the combine takes over, steering itself.
As the vehicle makes its way across the field collecting soybeans, the numbers on Becker’s screen inside the cab update every few seconds, measuring the amount harvested in each area, along with calculations on the grain’s weight and moisture. Becker’s system collects this data on each field he plants and harvests, noting the yield per acre.
When harvest is over, Becker will spend the winter examining the data collected in his fields. He’ll use the information to assess how well the season went and what adjustments he might make in how he plants, treats and cultivates next year’s crop.
“I'm going to take that at the end of the season and look at that and say, ‘Well, yeah, that was the right decision.’ Or, well, ‘I didn't see any results with that, so I probably won't do that again next year,’” Becker said.
This high-tech type of farming is called precision agriculture. Put simply, it’s about inputs and outputs — using data to assess exactly what farmers add to the soil to produce a successful crop.
Precision agriculture encompasses a suite of tools and practices that aim to help farmers make calculated decisions, such as planting an exact amount of seed and applying precisely the volume of herbicide, pesticide or fertilizer a crop needs.
“When you take a look at weeds across a field, they're not uniformly spaced across the field, you'll have clumps here and clumps there,” said Jason Norsworthy, a distinguished professor and Elms Farming Chair of Weed Science at the University of Arkansas. He grew up on a small vegetable farm in south-central Arkansas.
“It was intense labor. Weed control was a major component of what we fought on a daily basis,” he said.
Norsworthy has now made a career of suppressing weeds. He’s been a professor of weed science for more than 26 years, studying herbicide resistance, chemical alternatives and agriculture techniques that aim to save growers money and reduce environmental damage.
Norsworthy conducts research trials to test the effectiveness of precision agriculture tools. He said this method of farming differs from broadcasting chemical products over an entire field.
“It's an avenue to reduce the amount of herbicides that you're going to place out there on that acre,” Norsworthy said. “If they're not needed, why spray them?”
Norsworthy has tested the effectiveness of the John Deere See & Spray, a device that can be used to apply targeted chemical treatments to crops.
“There are cameras on the sprayer. Those cameras actually identify where those weeds are located within a field, and then turn on nozzles,” Norsworthy said.
His research found the See & Spray could reduce the amount of herbicide used by 50% compared to equipment that applies a blanket amount across the entire field.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has found similar results in its research trials. Phillip Owens is the research leader at the USDA’s research center in Booneville, Arkansas. His team analyzed the cost-saving and reduction in chemical use that could come from deploying self-steering tractors when applying fertilizers.
“We saw the human-driven applications overlapped applications of fertilizers or had gaps with no fertilizer applied,” Owens said in an email.
“The autosteer led to more precise applications and would save a farmer 20-30% on each application within the field,” he said, adding that the investment in auto-steer technology could pay itself off in a few years.
“The goal of precision agriculture is to reduce input costs and maintain or increase yield. That is a recipe for increased farm profits,” Owens said.
The agricultural treadmill
The first precision agriculture tools hit the market approximately 20 years ago. Now, many combines and tractors come with the technology built in and various add-ons are sold to farmers.
The additional tools come with claims they’ll increase crop yields — and by extension farm profits — and cut costs by reducing the amount of seed and chemical treatments the farmer needs to buy. The number of farmers using this technology has steadily climbed.
“Farming has become such a high tech area. At least the kind of commodity farming that's dominant in Iowa has become such a high tech occupation, really,” said J. Arbuckle, an Iowa State University rural sociologist.
He conducts the annual Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll and has been asking farmers about precision agriculture over the years to analyze what benefits they’re experiencing, as well as the challenges they see.
“We want to know whether or not the farmers' actual experiences reflected some of these claims. Did they feel like some of these purported benefits were actually happening for them?” Arbuckle said.
Strong majorities of farmers surveyed agreed precision agriculture tools improved input use efficiency. Two-thirds of survey participants were using GPS yield monitors and soil maps, and more than half were using auto-steer.
Many farmers felt the use of data-driven tech had resulted in at least some positive impacts. Most farmers who used autosteer, the self-driving function of Becker’s combine, reported that it had increased their productivity and improved their mental and physical health.
Farmers’ thoughts on the potential environmental impacts of precision agriculture were mixed — most agreed it would help reduce nutrient runoff into waterways, but many were unsure or disagreed that it could significantly decrease the amount of chemicals used to grow their crops.
“Most farmers don't feel like there's a major decrease in fertilizer and chemical use,” Arbuckle said. “They feel like the use is much more targeted … so they're putting it where they need it, rather than just uniformly spraying.”
Some farmers expressed concerns about the upfront cost of precision agriculture investments; others noted increased stress when technology malfunctions during field work. But 73% agreed that keeping up with precision technologies feels like a never-ending treadmill.
To see the cost of their investment pay off, farmers may need to cultivate more acres, leading to larger and larger farms.
“The farmers that are able to increase their yields and reduce their costs, they can stay on the treadmill, but every generation we lose another set of farmers and so that just results, over time, in fewer farms, larger scale farms,” Arbuckle said.
Norsworthy said precision agriculture technology is generally designed for the needs of large-scale commodity producers and whether farmers can afford to invest in high-tech tools is “highly dependent upon your farm size.”
“I think as individuals get larger and larger … there's more and more value associated with the precision technologies on those farms,” Norsworthy said.
USDA researcher Phillip Owens said adoption of the top farming technology — such as yield monitors, targeted crop treatments and auto-steer — on farms the federal agriculture department categorizes as small is about 10%. Use of precision agriculture on medium size farms is around 50%.
“I wish I could sit here and tell you that the 400-, 500-acre farmer can make a living today farming, but with commodity prices where they are, input costs where they are, it's becoming more and more challenging,” Norsworthy said.
Changes every year
Thad Becker tends corn, wheat and soybean fields in Centralia and Mexico, Missouri. He works with his father, Dennis, and his brother Ross, who also runs an agricultural support organization for primarily young farmers in the area.
The Becker brothers came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
“So kind of rough agriculture times,” Thad said.
Despite the challenges, Becker said he valued growing up on a farm and learning to work with nature, crops and livestock. He’s driven to keep the farm successful so his kids can have the same experience.
“I remember my grandpa saying that you should change one thing every year and just see what it does,” Becker said. “It may be a success, it may be a failure, but you ought to try something new every year, just to keep up with times and see what's going on.”
The Beckers started adopting high-tech agriculture tools in the late 1990s. Becker bought a used 2010 combine and installed the Ag Leader InCommand precision technology shortly thereafter. For Becker, the price of his farm gear quickly added up.
“The GPS is $2,500. The kit to actually monitor the yield inside the combine, all that hardware is $3,000,” Becker said. “It seems it goes in $3,000-$4,000 chunks at a time.”
Becker said he spent around $14,000 total on his latest system and has been able to recoup the cost of his investment through seed and herbicide savings — and his crops have been more successful.
“We fixed so many problems in our fields, yields have responded tremendously,” he said.
Plus, he sees other benefits to this high-tech farming. Thanks to the autonomous driving function, his back and neck aren’t as sore at the end of the day from steering a massive machine.
Along with the majority of farmers in the Iowa survey, precision agriculture tools have boosted Becker’s confidence when making decisions for his farm.
He said you can’t put a price on that.
