Debate: Is smart farming worth it?

Mr. Meierhöfer, is this what the future of agriculture will look like?

Johann Meierhöfer Unfortunately, there’s a huge gap between the people who are marching way out in front like Mr. Dörr and the vast majority. German farmers are very innovative, and many of them would like to do much more—but many of the basic requirements are missing. A fourth of German farmers use technologies that are related in some way to precision agriculture, but this proportion has barely increased in recent years. Evidently there are obstacles that the remaining farms cannot overcome. The policymakers often forget this fact very quickly if they are always presented only with examples such as Mr. Dörr’s farm.

According to a study conducted recently by the Bitkom association, large-scale farms believe that digitalization mostly offers them opportunities. Smaller operations have a more vivid awareness of the risks involved. Is digitalization in agriculture a question of size?

Meierhöfer Small farms use it successfully too. I know farmers with operations covering 50 or 100 hectares who are grappling intensely with digital technologies—for example, because they are raising livestock, an area where digitalization makes a lot of sense. Conversely, I know of large farms in regions such as Brandenburg, whose owners got involved very intensely with the topic 15 years ago and in some cases hired additional personnel who dealt only with the field file, yield analyses, soil samples, and precision application—and these owners eventually stopped using these technologies.

Farmers have had to deal with new technologies since time immemorial. What makes digitalization so special?

Dörr Farmers are being bombarded with so many things today. We’re experiencing upheavals resulting from climate change, fluctuating demand structures, and the desire for greater environmental compatibility on the part of policymakers and society as a whole. Digitalization is now a further step in this structural transformation. It can make the future of many farms easier—but also pour oil on the fire in the course of the ongoing structural transformation.

Meierhöfer Besides, it requires lots of preconditions. Take precision fertilization, for example. Fifty years ago a farmer would drive to the dealer, have the dealer pour the fertilizer into his trailer, and then drive out into the field. He chose the settings of the fertilizer spreader according to his past experience. Perhaps he drove a bit slower in one place and a bit faster in another—and that was the end of it. Today I have to start by purchasing the suitable technology. Nowadays a state-of-the-art tractor already receives a satellite signal as a rule, but I also need a fertilizer spreader that can make use of an application map. Next, I have to consider on which basis to proceed. Should I use the German soil inventory—that is, the soil maps that were created about 90 years ago for all of the agricultural land utilized in Germany? Do I place my trust in conductivity measurement, satellite images or a sensor? At that point some people might wonder if they want to go to all of this trouble.

Dörr You’re touching a sore spot here. At our farm we’re currently running a research project on precision fertilization. There are so many factors coming together in the soil that we can’t yet represent by means of data. We’ve participated in many experiments over the past ten years, but so far there hasn’t been any technology that impresses me. The experience my father brings to the farm operations, his connection with the different soils, his familiarity with the region and how its climate behaves—all of those things are much more important.

Just a moment, are you saying that digitalization as a whole is the wrong approach?

Dörr No, I have a different perspective when it comes to precision crop protection, for example. The precision application of crop protection agents can be determined according to simple parameters: More spray has to be applied to the plant stock where it’s dense than where it’s sparse. Digitalization can help us make the right decisions for improving soil quality, cultivation techniques, and livestock farming. We farmers have a long-term interest in that, because only healthy soils yield good harvests and only healthy animals provide high outputs.

Digitalization takes time. But you’re also saying that it enables you to save lots of time.

Dörr That’s right. It doesn’t always have to be a fantastic solution that uses satellite-supported technologies. The paperless office, in which documents are scanned and digitally filed, can already help a lot. Farms do direct marketing via webshops and advertise their products on social media. If you use digitalization in the right way, it simplifies processes significantly. You just have to choose what you need from the wide range of applications. 

Is the change of generations promoting digitalization?

Dörr It certainly is. It’s just the same in every area of life: When the children are using something new, the parents are forced to deal with it too. My father doesn’t understand the details of how some of the things we’re introducing actually work. But he thinks it’s cool that when he’s on the road he can pull his mobile phone out of his back pocket and look at our stock ledger app to find out how much wheat has already been threshed today and how much of it has already been brought to the grain store.

Shouldn’t it be up to industry to develop solutions that are more user-friendly and make life easier for the farmers?

Meierhöfer Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Until now, one big problem has been interoperability—the ability of machines to communicate with one another even if they come from different manufacturers. It’s true that standards for such communication have existed for decades—but I remember some very intense discussions a couple of years ago about the fact that the brand X fertilizer spreader didn’t want to work together with the brand Y tractor. Fortunately, that has been changing recently. Change is also afoot in the area of software. For a long time, manufacturers tried to sell solutions that were as comprehensive as possible. But farmers don’t always want to buy everything from a single source. Lately we’re seeing companies cooperate with one another—something they had refused to do for a long time. This gives me hope that the system is becoming more permeable.

Does this mean that customer needs are being identified more effectively?

Meierhöfer At least it comes down to business models that benefit not only the solution provider but also the farmer who uses a product or a software. For example, automatic steering systems make work easier for the driver—and that’s a clear benefit for operations. That also applies to milking robots, which you can find on many family-operated dairy farms today. This is also due to the fact that the robots make it easier to monitor the milk quality and thus the health status of the cows. Another very important factor is the benefit for the farmer, who can go to a birthday party on a Saturday afternoon without having to disappear into the cow stall at 5 p.m. The improvement of individuals’ quality of life, especially for family-run operations, should not be underestimated. Every technology that enhances efficiency or improves the quality of life will quickly become standard practice.

Does this mean that in the future farmers will buy fewer products and more services?

Meierhöfer I can imagine contractors and machinery pools being interested in offering not only fertilization for fields but also optimized fertilization recommendations—as long as they aren’t too expensive.

Dörr However, in the future this kind of thing could also be handled via artificial intelligence. The farmer would then communicate with an application that provides answers adapted to his needs. If he’s sitting in his tractor equipped with a mower in a pasture, the system could provide him with relevant information such as: “You are located in a biosphere reserve, so you can only mow here from June 15 on. Please leave ten percent of the grass untouched and mow from the center outwards so that deer and small wild animals have an escape route.” Currently, I can only turn to advisors, research institutes or other farmers if my yield of wheat has remained stagnant for years and I have to struggle more and more often with early-summer droughts. But it would be fantastic if there were an AI that’s fed with all of this information! In that case I could get an answer that sounds something like this: “Farms in climate regions similar to yours, which have similar crop rotations and cropping patterns, have switched from plowing to direct sowing,” for example. I would have concrete answers and could research the situation more deeply.

Meierhöfer This is something that may happen one day. But in Germany we still lack the fundamental conditions for sharing this data and putting it to active use. Even data that are basically public are hardly ever made available to the agricultural sector in a usable form. Farmers primarily think in the long term, that’s part of their job description. But like all businesspeople, their available time and financial resources are limited. So I have to consider what can help me here and now. If it doesn’t bring me at least a medium-term effect, I won’t use it.

In some technologies Germany and Europe were the leaders—and were overtaken later on by other regions of the world. Are you afraid that other countries will digitalize their agricultural sector faster and put European farms under pressure?

Meierhöfer There are many factors in the area of production in which we are at a much greater disadvantage compared to the rest of the world. The fact that digitalization is not yet being used by the entire agricultural sector in Germany is not a serious regional handicap. To express it somewhat provocatively, if I’m a trained agronomist, in a pinch I can manage my farm even without digitalization. This has worked over the past 50 years, and it will work in the next 50 years as well. When it comes to the office work related to farm operations, things become more problematic. In this area I’m especially concerned about the excessive government bureaucracy. Managing it without digital assistance is becoming difficult.