
Big Farms Are About to Get Bigger - digisth
http://www.american.com/archive/2013/december/big-farms-are-about-to-get-bigger
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rmason
I spent twenty years in the fertilizer business and worked with farmers big
and small every day.

Here's the facts:

1\. Farming is a low margin business

2\. The only way to succeed is to be a great manager at large scale

3\. Most of the technology is used to allow farmers to successfully manage
larger and larger farms

4\. Most of these with a few exceptions truly are family farms or if they were
in town what we would view as small business.

5\. The biggest challenge for the farmer in software isn't collecting the data
but receiving actionable information from it.

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maerF0x0
Seems some small farmers disagree with your "facts" 1&2:

Joel Salatin of polyface farms makes more than his neighbors (particularly on
a per acre basis) by throwing away "big agribusiness" truisms like single
purpose machinery, monocultures, and chemical stimulants for the land. He uses
symbiosis instead, creates a premium product that his customers are willing to
pay a premium for, all without subsidization (iirc).

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CapitalistCartr
There is a small market for specialization; my parents did it well. But the
bulk of food comes from the farm rmason is talking about, the massive amounts
of grain, vegetables, and meat that feeds America. The plural of anecdote
isn't data.

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contingencies
The plural of snark isn't intelligence, either.

~~~
sliverstorm
If your parent's post ruffled your snark-feathers, your sensibilities may
be... overly sensitive.

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bpodgursky
"What we have gained in efficiency and by avoiding the overuse of scarce and
potentially environmentally damaging inputs, we may be losing in the
connections of the farm family to the ancestral place."

What a stupid quote. If it's a tradeoff, call it a tradeoff--you are not
losing environmental savings by losing the "connection of the farm family to
the ancestral place", you are trading something sentimental for direct
benefits to the environment and cheaper food.

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protomyth
My main quibble with this article is that a lot of the "revolutionary data" is
already known and used. Farmers know the yield others are getting. Elevators
are reporting what they are taking in to big companies doing investing.
Satellite pictures and some aircraft pictures are already used.

The image of the farmer as a simple, non-tech person is pretty pathetic. The
current generation of farmers are pretty sophisticated. You cannot make it
this far without being that. The amount of data a farmer wants is pretty
impressive.

The JD thing in the article is the newest and I'm not sure its going to be a
ongoing proposition if the farmers don't benefit financially from their data.
A lot of farmers run their combines all harvest by starting them in the south
and working their way north as the harvest progresses. You have to pay for a
vehicle that makes most high-end sports cars look cheap. They also aren't the
cheapest thing to maintain. That harvest run of data is know to the farmer and
would be worth some cash.

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sliverstorm
_The image of the farmer as a simple, non-tech person is pretty pathetic. The
current generation of farmers are pretty sophisticated._

Many members of the current generation of farmers even have college degrees
just as serious & relevant to their field as any other science.

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himanshuSingh
It's amazing the insight that is uncovered about a farming operation's
efficiency and potential lost revenues when one takes the time to gather all
the information in a useful way.

We believe so much in the benefits of using technology to better manage a farm
can have on the bottom line that we give Farm At Hand away for FREE.

www.farmathand.com

