Grainswest - Tech 2023

Tech 2023 Grains West 6 Industrymust eliminatebarriers to agtechadoption WHERE ADOPTION OF A NEW technology can shave a percentage off in- put cost, produce a yield advantage, boost soil health or diminish carbon footprint, you’d think the appeal would be irresisti- ble. This isn’t always the case on Canadi- an farms, and the reasons vary. In March, Olds College researcher Tomas Nilsson published a paper that attempts to better understand the uptake of technology by farmers. An agricultural economist, Nilsson is a faculty member at the Werklund School of Agriculture and Technology. The study used data from the Statistics Canada 2016 and 2021 Census of Agriculture, Farm Manage- ment Survey and Survey of Current Business Conditions. Between the two Census years, the use of certain technologies increased. These included autosteer, GIS mapping and ro- botic milking equipment. Less encourag- ing, fewer than half of Canadian farmers employ technologies such as autosteer, GIS mapping, variable-rate input applica- tion and slow-release fertilizer. Nilsson stressed farms are too varied for simple generalizations about adop- tion rates. Perhaps unexpectedly, he also believes the age of farmers may not be a big factor in willingness to use tech- nology. Rather, conversation between peers, independent of age, appears to be a stronger motivator. Looking beyond assumptions, the paper revealed some sticky trends. The three big hurdles to adoption are access to finance that allows farmers to invest in technology, limited high-speed connec- tivity and a lack of skilled workers to im- plement these new technologies. Smaller farms may also have difficulty accessing the crop consultants required to leverage technologies in a productive way. “These are some of the challenges it’s appropriate to discuss,” said Nilsson. “How do we tackle them, and how do we overcome these hurdles? Also, who are the producers that are facing these diffi- culties, and what can we do to lower this threshold?” With the help of Statistics Canada, he will conduct further anal- ysis to determine in greater detail how farmers adopt technology by geographic location, size and farm type. To ignore new tech may prove costly. Needed agronomic and sustainability improvements are impacted by slow adoption of key technologies. Nilsson cited the technological sophistication required to implement 4R practices. “Similarly, global consumers increasingly want to know where and how their food was grown.” Born and raised on a Swedish dairy, Nilsson keenly appreciates that farmers feed the world. Globally, one in two households are connected to the agri- EDITOR’S MESSAGE “global consumers increasingly want to know where and how their food was grown.” —Tomas Nilsson food system and more than one billion people work in agriculture, he noted. “The Earth’s population is growing. We also face issues around biodiversity and climate change. Finding technologies, solutions and innovations that work to ensure our food system provides healthy, nutritious food and produces low waste and high productivity is really, really im- portant. We can only have these conver- sations by having good data.” In this annual ag tech issue of GrainsWest , we discuss gear and systems that incorporate digital and mechanical innovation. Though not necessarily tied to sectorwide initiatives, they address the barriers Nilsson cites. Increasingly, such products are more affordable and simpler to use. Though major barriers to adoption remain and must be addressed, the momentum created by such equipment can only encourage farmers to further embrace technology.