January 26th 2024
Over the past few years, there has been an increasing pressure to digitize farms across the world. Politicians and regulators are pushing for more reporting. Office workers in the agriculture industry are pushing for carbon initiatives. Equipment manufacturers are slowly introducing the switch to precision farming. Most people developing and talking about these changes are not out there in the fields, they are in offices in cities drinking lattes. And they have become so used to full connectivity everywhere, that they have fully forgotten the times before the internet.
Too many farms are still offline
Internet connectivity is still a barrier for the farm. Even in 2024. Even in developed nations.
The US magazine, Successful Farming reported that 30% of large farms still lack a stable internet connection. Across Europe, the trend isn’t much different. In 2022, Vodaphone surveyed 429 farms across Europe to try and understand the barriers to accessing technology on farms. They found the following:
- Access to good mobile connectivity was a particular issue in Greece (cited by 33%) and Turkey (cited by 27%).
- Access to fixed/broadband internet was a particular issue in Spain (cited by 46%), Hungary (cited by 44%) and Greece (cited by 41%).
Turkey and Spain, in particular, produce more fruit and vegetables than any other EU country. However, the farms are still struggling to get access to the technology infrastructure they need to keep up with modern ways of working. The article published by Vodaphone is adequately titled, ‘Farmers say digital technologies key to productivity and sustainability, but urgent government support is needed.”
The statistics we can access are arguably from the most developed countries; what about the hundreds of millions of farms in Africa, Asia and South America?
The farm office has a fax machine
Access to the internet isn’t just required to kick-start precision farming initiatives. It’s essential for efficiently running a business. Imagine you manage a medium-sized farm. You have a workforce of 10 people spread out over 100 hectares. There is no network access. No wifi. What happens when you need to talk to someone about a change in their daily tasks? You get in the truck, and you drive until you find them. Massive waste of time and fuel. Completing basic tasks takes on a very different meaning when you run a business without network connectivity.
Now, imagine you work at an agricultural cooperative that communicates with large numbers of farms. How do you reach them? No joke. The fax. If you were born after 1990, you may not know what that is. If you do remember the fax machine, it likely triggers a sharp memory of annoying beeping. Just last month, we had educational material on our FMS platform at Farmable shared with growers in Europe through a weekly fax newsletter to the farms belonging to a cooperative. This is how farms and the industry around them are forced to make business work when basic infrastructure fails them.
Some info for you
Farmable was originally founded on the premise of simplifying on-farm work processes through digital tools developed on our own farm in Norway. Over the past five years, we have received valuable feedback from farmers worldwide, particularly in our focus countries such as Spain, Germany, the UK, Australia, and South Africa. Today, we stand as a leading farm management software provider with more than 35 000 farms registered.
Farm Management Software (FMS), at its core, is about streamlining daily agricultural activities and meticulously documenting essential data from these activities. A prime example is the precise mixing of spray tanks for plant protection treatments, a critical process for farm operations. Farmable empowers farmers by ensuring they correctly mix spray tanks, adhere to product label limits, and maintain high health, safety, and environmental (HSE) standards. These are just a few examples of the significance of FMS in modern agriculture. Whether you use Farmable software or another digital tool, we are happy to see digital progress in the horticulture industry. Are you wondering about effective approaches to data management for your farm? Check out our series on Organizing Your Farm Data and Automating Your Documentation.
Farmable users are asking for offline features
We launched the first version of the Farmable app back in 2019, and it was built on the assumption of total connectivity. This is because the features necessary to enable digitalization require real-time access to cloud services. You can always try to make some basic features available offline, but many digitalization benefits are only realized through full connectivity. Even simple things like delegating a job to a crew member and getting a notification if this crew member is doing something wrong are impossible without connectivity. Therefore, we decided early on that designing offline functionality was not for us.
Yet, the most requested feature by users since 2019 has been to allow offline functionality.
Thankfully, others are now solving this problem for us.
SpaceX to the rescue: Global internet
The same year we launched our first app, SpaceX launched their first Starlink satellite into orbit. Since then, more than 5000 satellites have provided internet coverage to most of the globe. So far, however, users have needed a dedicated antenna to connect. Wifi connectivity in rural areas has been provided this way, but it’s not exactly what the farmers need as they move around their fields. In recent news, however, SpaceX has tested direct-to-cell connectivity, meaning your mobile phone will be able to communicate directly with the satellites. This will be the real revolution for all the farmer’s use cases; regardless of where they are located on the planet.
Elon on Agriculture
Love him or hate him, Elon Musk has a way of making change happen. Agriculture is overdue for a digital transformation, and solving the internet connectivity challenge is undeniably crucial to further progress. Musk and his team at SpaceX are getting a positive response from big players in the industry. Last week, John Deere announced it was ready to take full advantage of Starlink’s technology and provide connectivity to its farming equipment in remote locations.
The industry is holding its breath in the hope of better days to come. Agriculture needs a superhero, and Elon Musk just might be it.
Connectivity enables digitalization of agriculture
As various industries have progressed through their digitalization journey, one of the most common ways of explaining what’s happening has been by pointing to various technological trends occurring at the same time and reinforcing each other. Connectivity was always one of those trends. With this ingredient missing, it’s no surprise that agriculture has been slower to adopt digital solutions.
It’s all coming together now; connectivity from satellites, autonomous tractors from the equipment suppliers, precision treatment prescriptions from the agronomists, and reporting regulations from the Authorities.
Digitalization of the agriculture industry can finally begin for real.
