Grainswest - Tech 2026

Tech 2026 Grains West 42 Online course distills practical insights fromdata overload FARMERS COLLECT ENORMOUS volumes of data through yield maps, soil samples, field records and farm manage- ment software. It has been a constant challenge to figure out what to do with it. Think of all those dusty binders and unopened spreadsheets. Artificial intelligence, especially large language models (LLMs), are begin- ning to change this, said North Dakota entrepreneur and farmer Nick Horob via email. “We’re moving away from the era where farmers are drowning in data to an era where they’re going to be able to uncover increasingly more insights from their data.” Horob and Minnesota farmer and tech- nology strategist Michael Steeke launched the four-week AI On Your Farm course in January. Delivered online, it is aimed at farmers who wish to use rapidly evolving AI tools in their operations. Horob also founded Harvest Profit, a farm manage- ment software company whose namesake product is a farm financial platform. Harvest Profit was acquired by John Deere in 2020. Horob has long been passionately inter- ested in AI and the construction of digital tools. His course introduces participants to LLMs such as Claude and ChatGPT and explores how these models can assist with data analysis, workflow automation and even custom software development tai- lored to individual farm operations. Horob believes LLMs have improved dramatical- ly since early 2025, particularly in areas that previously limited their usefulness in agriculture. “AI has gotten exponentially better over the last 12 months at being able to do advanced data analysis,” he said. “A lot of the weaknesses of the past, like doing math, have been mostly solved.” This potential is already changing the approach many agricultural professionals take to data management and BetterfarmingwithAI HEAD OF THE CLASS BY RYYNN RATHWELL • PHOTO COURTESY OF NICK HOROB Recently launched, the AI On Your Farm program is geared toward farmers who wish to incorporate the use of AI in their operations. Co-founder Nick Horob believes the technology can take farmers from data overload to better business results. decision-making. Rather than simply collect and store information or utilize a limited amount, farmers and consult- ants are using AI tools to identify trends, compare scenarios and uncover insights that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. For operations that manage large volumes of agronomic and financial data, AI is increasingly a practical, everyday tool for doing better business. Ryan Moore is an Arkansas-based certified crop adviser and independent ag- ricultural data and technology consultant. Horob’s course significantly shifted his approach to farm analytics. “I was using ChatGPT the way I used to use Google,” said Moore in an email interview. “Ask a question, get an answer, move on. I knew there had to be more to it than that, but I didn’t know where to begin.” Moore works primarily with large-scale row crop operations across the Mississippi River Delta and manages data tied to more