While I am the latest agricultural news, I can’t help but notice a continuous interest in integrate more technology in many production systems. Precision agriculture, artificial intelligence and agricultural robotics are among the most spoken and fastest. My concern with regard to technology is that we focus too much on it and not enough on our fundamental resource, the soil.
Precision agriculture has existed for some time now, using advanced data and equipment to apply culture protection products and fertilizers with greater precision on a field. Precision agriculture has evolved from the simple mapping of the soil sampling data to actually control the appliance appliability equipment on the go.
The first time I heard someone refer to artificial intelligence as “AI”, I thought they were talking about artificial insemination, which was “AI” in the agriculture I knew. Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool that can save time and energy by quickly and logically processing complex data. Finally, robotics has long been applied to manufacturing, but more recently to agriculture. The robots that can stream the cows, clean the barns and kill weeds are incredible.
Know that I have no scruples with people who develop and implement new technologies, but only if these new technologies can help achieve a well thought out goal. We must remember that technology is a tool, not a goal in itself.
An objective can be defined as a desired result or condition. What should you define as the desired result or condition for your farm? Do you have all the latest technologies? Do you have higher crop yields or calf weights? Check the weeds? Profitability? Sustainability? Quality of life?
I think that most producers should agree that obtaining short and long -term profitability and leaving the land better than you have found while maintaining a reasonably good quality of life would be a respectable vision of a goal. If this is the case, we must be careful to select and apply tools in a way that will bring us closer to the objective and not to involuntarily use these tools to degrade the soil with greater precision and efficiency.
I think the real problem here could be the difficulty we have of sorting the problems of the symptoms when they decide the tools to apply to achieve a goal. Problems often prevent us from achieving a goal and should be properly identified.
To understand what the problem is, the wisdom of a 3 year old child. We have to ask “why?” Until we arrived at the root of the problem.
For example: why is a current production system not profitable? Due to spending too much money in contribution costs to produce my harvest. For what? Because the soil does not infiltrate water or does not provide nutrients to culture as it should. For what? Because the soil is not healthy and fulfills the functions it should. For what? Because the ground has not been managed in a way that makes it healthy. For what? Due to a lack of understanding of the functioning of the soil as a biological system.
You can start this questioning process with any agricultural symptoms you want – weeds, insects, diseases, erosion – but the answer will inevitably be that the soil does not execute the functions which it must fulfill.
Recognizing that a floor does not work properly is the first step. Completely functional healthy soil requires few entries, other than seeds, which can considerably reduce input costs. For the ground to work again at its full potential, it is necessary: to disturb the soil less, to increase the diversity of plants cultivated in this soil, maintain the living roots in the soil as much as possible and keep the ground covered with plants and their residues at any time. These basic principles promote the capacities of soil microbiology to capture and store water and capture, cycle and storage of nutrients for culture cultivation.
With access, we now owe technology, the application of these principles of soil health health has never been easier. If the objective is to restore soil health, the choice of tools and how to use them will become clear.
The restoration of soil health is not only a question of stewardship, it is a question of profitability and the viability of rural communities. We now understand enough how the soil works as a biological system, which implements technology in a thoughtful way to restore the soil and keep farmers in business, must go hand in hand.
Jon Stika is a retired natural resources conservation health instructor and a current part -time professional at the Dickinson Research Extension Center of the Northern Dakota State University. He is also the author of “Soil owner manual: how to restore and maintain soil health. “”