WEBVTT - High Tech Farming 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:16.400 With Technology textoff from hoom. Hey everyone, welcome to Tech Stuff. 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.800 I am Jonathan Strickland, and today joining me in the 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.200 studio is Scott Benjamin, host of Car Stuff. Hello again, 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.520 how are you Scott great? Thank you again for asking 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.000 me to kind of guest spot on your show, if 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.720 I appreciate you coming on. We had some requests from 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.920 our audience to cover a topic that I haven't really 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.000 touched on in the past, is one about how technology 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.360 is shaping agriculture, and uh, it's one of those things 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:49.519 that honestly, you know, I was amazed at how technology 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:55.040 is rapidly changing the face of agriculture because in my mind, 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:57.920 it's one of those things that's been kind of set 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.320 technologically speaking for decades, and it just shows how how 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.200 ignorant I was of the whole thing. I had just 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:07.839 a tiny bit of insight on this from our listener 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.720 and our listening audience. UM. Back in two thousand ten, 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:12.600 I think we did an episode about some of the 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:14.520 some of the stuff that was happening back then. But 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.039 even since two thousand and ten, there's been a lot 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:19.120 of advances. But we have a few listeners in our 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.080 audience that, um, you know, their their ranch hands or 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:24.240 work on the farm, and they listen to the podcast 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:26.640 as they you know, or killing the fields or whatever 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:30.559 they're doing tending to the herd. And um, they said, 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:32.040 you know what would be really interesting I don't think 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:33.920 a lot of people know about this is just how 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:37.520 advanced tractors are becoming, Just how advanced, um, you know, 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.960 barnes themselves are becoming. It's not just that just the machinery. 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.280 It's also you know, everything that goes around around growing 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:50.960 or or um harvesting and like maximum potential yields. All 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.320 that has to do with with modern technology more or 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.640 less now, I guess, um, it's all becoming pushed far 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:00.240 more into the future than you would ever think. Yeah, 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.440 And and it's interesting because we're at a time where 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:10.040 we're seeing a decreasingly small percentage of the population being 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.400 dedicated to the roles of ranching and farming. Right if 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.480 you look at United States history, this is particularly true 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:17.760 in the U S, but you can see it in 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.840 other places as well. If you look at the beginning 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.840 of the twentieth century, so around nineteen hundred or so, 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:28.000 about half of the population of the United States were farmers, 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.360 and then you get to and before that was even 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:36.000 larger numbers um percentage wise. You know, obviously the population 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.840 itself was smaller, but percentage wise it was. There were 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.440 many more farmers. And what happened was this little thing 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:46.359 called the Industrial Revolution. You've probably heard that term, Scott, Yeah, 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.760 I figured you might. So the Industrial revolution actually meant 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:54.359 the mechanization of lots of different industries, including agriculture. And 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:58.519 so around nineteen hundred, your chief means of operating the 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:05.079 various machine in agriculture were it was horsepower, literal horsepower, 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:09.160 actually using horses. Yeah, it wasn't until the nineteen twenties 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:14.880 nineteen thirties the tractors really started to get traction in agriculture. 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.440 And then, oh boy, I'm gonna have to leave. I know, 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.560 I'm sorry, it's I've lost so many co hosts this way. Actually, 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.200 to be fair, Chris, Chris was way worse about puns 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:29.240 than I was. He was king. Yeah, but at any rate. Yeah, 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.600 So so you get to the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:38.080 those numbers start increasing. But as the mechanization increases, the 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.800 number or the percentage of population that needs to be 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:45.400 farmers or ranchers decreased because you didn't need that much labor, right, 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:50.120 you were able to offload the labor to to mechanization 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:52.360 to some extent. Sure, Well, how many times have we 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:54.360 heard in the path, I mean, in the past decade 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.440 even that very soon the world population is going to 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:01.280 outpace the capability that we have to produce food for 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.160 that population. And it's always, I mean, I've I've heard 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:06.080 this for a long long time. It's not just ten years, 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.880 maybe twenty thirty years or even even longer than that. 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.720 Probably I just haven't been privy to that information. But 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:13.760 it always seems like they say the world's population will 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:17.880 exceed the world's capacity to produce food by the year X, 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.400 and the year X is always about twenty years out, 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.239 ten or twenty years out, and and it always seems 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.760 like we always overcome then some way. So and then 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:27.800 this is I found this interesting. I found an article 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:30.680 um in the Guardian from Feen that was talking about 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:35.400 developing nations and uh some innovations, some revolutionary farming innovations, 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.719 and they said that in the last fifty years agricultural 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.880 production has actually tripled in the last fifty years. That's amazing. Well, 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.120 the thing is you're saying that the number of farmers 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:49.200 has gone down, the number the amount of production has 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.760 tripled in the last fifty years. So they're becoming more efficient. 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.719 And every year that's a challenge for them to become 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.280 more and more efficient with less and less people, less 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.039 and less property to do so because uh, you know, 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.880 the the farmland is at a premium right now in 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:06.440 a lot of countries, are a lot of places that 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.839 um um, they're they're severe government restrictions on the amount 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.320 of space that you're allowed to use for a farm. 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.560 They're they're building structures, you know, so that they're building 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.160 up instead of out. Um, And that's a way to 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.880 increase efficiency and and it really productivity and yields from 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.200 their crops no matter what it is, it's tomatoes, cucumbers, 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.400 whatever it happens to be. Uh, some of these things 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.839 that they're even finding that building um, you know, here's 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:32.880 the difference, Like instead of building a six ft roof 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.240 or an eight foot roof on a greenhouse, if they 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.080 put a twelve foot roof on a greenhouse, they can 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.080 double production. And I think it was tomatoes and cucumbers. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.880 That's pretty incredible. Yeah, So things like that small things 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.200 like that can make a big, big difference. And you 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:49.320 know you're talking about the increase in population. The number 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:51.000 you're going to find if you do some searches on 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.240 this on Google. I think the number that's most frequently 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.000 cited is about by twenty fifty, we're looking at nine 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.120 point two billion people on Earth. Yeah. I have today's number, 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.279 by the way, Okay, I looked at it just this morning, 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.760 so as of today, it's about seven point three billion people. 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:08.720 And I watched the counter for a short amount of time. 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.279 There's a pretty interesting site called um it's called world 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.239 ometers dot info and it's just a world population clock really, 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.320 but you can watch all kinds of numbers as they 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:20.280 go up and down depending on what you're looking at. 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.200 But pretty fascinating. Seven point three billion as of now, 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.280 but it's steadily clicking up. That's pretty Yeah, I mean, 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:31.440 it's it's amazing. It's also a little sobering because once 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.760 we hit nine point two billion people, the other estimations 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:38.159 say that at that point by we will need to 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:42.440 have him increased food production from today's standards by another 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:46.920 seventy okay question here though, all right, here's here's now 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.560 they know the numbers are staggering. And if you look 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:51.120 back at that way, you look at that site that 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:52.760 I was just talking about today, and I didn't write 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:54.880 down all these numbers because it was just way too much. 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.279 There's a lot of information there, and it's it's all stats. 0:06:57.279 --> 0:06:59.760 It's a pretty fascinating site. But they said that in 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:01.320 and this is just to give you an idea of 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.560 in nineteen seventy there were roughly half as many people 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:06.640 in the world as there are today. That means we've 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.880 doubled since nineteen seventy. That's short amount of time. Now 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.640 they say that due to growth rate decreases, it'll take 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.239 about two hundred years for that population to double again. 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.040 But then I look at that number and I think, well, 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.400 how many people were there in nineteen seventy There must 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:25.000 have been um, roughly three and a half billion people. Ballpark. Well, 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.200 they're talking about going from you know, seven and a 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:31.480 half billion up to fifteen billion people. That's why, because 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.040 it's an additional seven and a half billion people instead 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:38.080 of four billion people. So maybe that's the reason. But still, uh, 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.600 the disparity between the number of you know, what is 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.920 that forty five years and you know um two hundred years. 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:47.800 That's that's an incredible amount of time. I mean, so 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:50.040 how does all that factor into I mean, there's so 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.480 many numbers here at play that I had a hard 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.480 time figuring out where we stand as far as when 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:57.160 the food's going to run out. Well, and it gets 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.920 even more complicated than that's Scott, because all so we're 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.920 seeing more countries kind of emerge from developing to getting 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:10.640 to developed status, as as people become more affluent, as 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:15.080 they as middle classes begin to emerge in various populations. 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.160 One of the first markers of that is that people 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:23.400 want access to a better diet that includes more variety 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:27.080 of foods and a higher quality of those foods. So 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.720 not only are we going to need to increase production 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.720 in order to meet the needs of a growing population, 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.240 but we need to make sure that that is a 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:41.480 varied approach, not like well we'll just we'll just grow 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.319 more rice or more grains of some sort. It has 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:46.600 to actually be a variety of foods, which means that 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.920 we have to start really looking at strategies um for 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.480 multiple reasons. And so I'm wondering when you were doing 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.640 your research here we're going into ag tech, did you 0:08:55.679 --> 0:09:01.720 come across the term precision agriculture. This is exciting stuff. 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:03.640 I think it is. I mean, it really comes down 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.320 to what you would call, I guess a smart farm. Yeah, 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:07.920 And I don't know if that's a term or if 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:09.640 that's something I came up with her I came across 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:11.520 it somewhere, but but it does seem to me like 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.120 it's smart farming. And exactly that's exactly right, and it's 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:16.480 just in the same way that you would think of 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.280 a smart home. This is very apt. But precision farming. 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.600 I mean that that it seems so odd because that's 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:24.240 something that we never would have heard of. Maybe ten 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.480 years ago, fifteen years ago. It just wasn't that way 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.120 it was, and it wasn't haphazard by any means. It 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.000 was just that it wasn't to the to the inch 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.679 precise as it is today. I mean, sure that the 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.160 farmer would tell till his road, um in his road, 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.200 his field in straight rows, and he would know that 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:44.319 I can get roughly this amount of seeds in this row, 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:46.760 and et cetera. But now we're down to planning to 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.760 the very inch to get that maximum yield and to 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.840 the very second, like not just not just in in distance, 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.319 but in time as well. So in ages past, you 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.959 knew you planted in the spring and you would harvest 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.640 in the fall. But with precision agriculture, it is not 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.200 a joke to say you're going to want to plant 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.000 on Wednesday. Like you can end up getting data that 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:13.680 is so precise, and it's dependent upon multiple factors. Right, 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.280 So we're talking about a lot of different technologies and 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:21.199 processes that have to work for precision agriculture to work. 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:23.320 So I'm just gonna run down some of them. You 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.559 need sensors. Those sensors are going to detect things like humidity, 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:30.560 the moisture level in the in the soil, the actual 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:34.480 acidity of the soil, the chemical composition. You want to 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:39.319 have other sensors that can detect when plants need water. 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:43.280 There's actually a sensor that is a leaf sensor. It 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.559 attaches to a leaf and it measures the change in 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:51.319 voltage that happens when the leaf contracts. Now, a contracting 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:56.520 leaf is an indicator that the plant needs water. Yeah, 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.160 so you get imagine you are a farmer and you 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.040 get alert on your smartphone that says you need to 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:05.800 water the fields today. Because this is an early indicator 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.840 that the plants are are quote unquote thirsty, which is 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.679 pretty incredible. I used to work in a nursery and uh, 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:14.240 like a tree nursery, not not a baby nursery, but 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.120 a tree nursery, and uh, you know some of these 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.520 hot summer days in July and August. I'll tell how 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:20.000 we knew when we had to water is what we 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.680 looked at the field of trees, you know, the entire 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:24.640 nursery and said, it looks like they're a little wilted 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:26.520 with better throw some water on the plants, right, And 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:27.760 that's what we did. I mean, it was it was 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.040 just kind of seat of the pants stuff. And and 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.800 there's less and less seat of the pants farming going 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.880 on now. It's more precise, as you said. And those 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.280 sensors I mean that you mentioned. It's not just that 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.280 there's sensors and you have to go to a central 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.720 location even to to read or monitor those. You don't 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.120 have to. You can some of them will send mobile 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.920 alert to the farmer via smartphone. Yeah. They're all these 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:54.120 these systems now that you can put in place at 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.679 your farm that allows these sensors to interact with a 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.560 network and alert you to minute changes so that you 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.320 can make big decisions with the best technology, the best 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.959 information available. Other tech that you will see in precision 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:13.960 agriculture include satellites or drones, and these are specifically to 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:18.240 monitor the status of crops throughout the year so that 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.160 you can determine what the maturity level of the crops 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.240 happens to be at any given point. You know, you 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.679 want to harvest the crops at the right maturity level 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:31.480 so that you minimize crop loss because obviously if you 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:33.760 if you go too early, then stuff isn't right yet, 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:35.760 You're not gonna be able to sell all the crops 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.160 that you harvest if you go too late. Same sort 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.320 of problem, except of course on the other side of it, 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.439 so you want to be able to get the crops. 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:47.680 You want to harvest them when it's absolutely at their peak, 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.920 and that way you maximize the yield, you minimize the loss. 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.360 These are all different factors that go into the idea 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.600 of precision agriculture. Meanwhile, on the on the offtware side, 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:04.439 you have to have computer algorithms that are incredibly sophisticated 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:06.960 so that they can crunch these numbers and make it 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.960 meaningful information that farmers can act on. In other words, 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.960 they provide information that can can build maps, visual visual 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.920 representations of what your field it looks like, What what 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.440 the terrain you're talking about looks like. Um, you know, 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.280 where their hot spots are, where the plants are growing 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:25.319 and their best where they're not growing quite so? Well, 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:29.320 what the reasons could be behind that. They may analyze, Uh, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.040 you know, why this this one sector of the field 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:36.040 isn't maybe producing as much as it possibly could, versus 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:40.120 the sector that's just one yards away yet is is overproducing. 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:42.160 It's producing more than they expected. And why is that? 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.880 Maybe they can you know, learn something from that section 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.719 or sector and uh and incorporate that into the next 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.920 year's crop, right And uh, you know, it's an excellent 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:52.800 point you make, because one thing we have to keep 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:54.240 in mind is a lot of the farms in the 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.760 United States. Okay, if you're looking at farms, Uh, the 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:00.360 overwhelming majority of farms in the US our familyly owned 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.479 and operated, right ninety Like in the nine upper ninety percentile. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.959 Only less than five percent of farms in the United 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:13.680 States are owned by non family operated corporations. So even 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.680 though they're they're huge, we're talking about like craft would 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:18.680 own a giant farm or something like. Right, you know 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:20.800 that they would they would grow their own products, yes, 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:23.720 or monsanto or you know there's tons of them, right, 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.200 but at any rate, uh that that only that only 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:29.520 accounts for less than five percent of all the farms 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.640 in the United States. However, the midsized farms are slowly 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:35.400 getting edged out. In the U S. You've got a 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.359 lot of small farms that are doing all right, particularly 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:43.080 in markets where there's a high value placed on organic 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.520 farming that kind of thing, and local is localized farming, um, 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.280 but it's mostly turning into really big farms and small 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.640 farms in the midsized farms are starting to get weeded out. 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.960 But with those big farms, you can have such a 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.920 huge farm that it is completely possible that one part 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:05.560 of your land is getting adequate moisture from a weather 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.800 system moving through and another part isn't. And this is 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.760 the kind of technology. These sensors, the the drones, and 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:17.240 the satellite imagery are the kind of things that tell you, oh, 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.640 the southern part of my farm is fine, that's the 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.840 weather system came through provide enough water, but the northern 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:28.560 part is in need. Of irrigating, so then you can 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:33.760 irrigate just the parts of your farm that needed saving water. 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.920 It also means that one of the important technologies with 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:44.200 precision agriculture is incredibly accurate weather forecasting. It's incredibly important. 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.760 And you can extrapolate this too ranching as well for 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.520 livestock and herds, because you know, they're they're enormous ranches 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.640 in Texas and California, Montana, Montana that are are the 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:58.000 exact same thing you're talking about, where weather systems moved 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.440 through and only affect maybe the southern or a southeastern 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:04.760 corner of that of that ranch. And it's very possible that, 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.680 you know, the ranchers might decide I'm gonna move my 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.200 my flock, my herd out of that region in time 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.760 to avoid that blizzard or that that that horrific thunderstorm 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:16.560 that's going to come through on Wednesday, or you know, 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.400 whatever it happens to be. So ranchers deal with a 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.160 lot of the same things. And of course we're talking 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.120 about food production still, so all kind of ties in. 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:26.320 Can I say one more thing about drones before we 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:28.840 move on? In fact, maybe a little bit more than 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:30.800 one thing, but of course there's the obvious uses for 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:35.000 them monitoring crops. UM you know, looking at you know, 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.480 distant or remote locations that UM or are difficult to 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:39.920 get to for a farmer, so that you know, you 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.840 can daily fly a drone up the hillside and look 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.480 at your your coffee crop or whatever happens to be. UM. 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.240 You know, people that use terraced farms, you know for 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.640 space and and UM you know, just irrigation capabilities I guess, 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.160 or you know whatever, so that it's the most optimal 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.080 way to grew crops. It might be the most difficult 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.080 to also reach by foot so or by vehicle. Uh, 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.280 drones kind of eliminate all that. And the other thing 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:08.240 that is really really important is that UM drones are 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:13.879 capable of delivering fertilizer and insecticide at precise locations. So 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:15.480 you know, the maps that we just talked about. With 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.000 the software programs that create maps and and show you 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.080 exactly how crops are growing in certain regions or sectors, 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:27.040 you can precisely accurately deliver the right amount of insecticides 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:29.600 or or pesticides or whatever happens to be that you 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.639 need in that area to that just that one sector 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:35.560 via a drone, you know as a sprayer underneath. And 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.400 whether we're talking about you know, small helicopters or um 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.280 you know the quad copters that we see often kind 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:46.760 of eight eight one of the octicopters. Um they replace, 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:49.360 uh you know the guys that would fly in those 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:53.320 crop dusters. Have you ever seen a crop duster in action? Okay, 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:55.800 they're they are fascinating, are they. I mean you see 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:57.760 those guys are like daredevils. I mean it's like the 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.280 best um um air shows on you've ever seen when 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.000 you see them going really i mean remarkably low low 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.040 LT street. What's it's startling if you're in let's say 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.520 that you're driving through the Midwest, You're in Indiana, Ohio, 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.680 somewhere in there, and uh, you know, maybe two yards 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:16.880 ahead of you you see an airplane buzz through that's 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:18.600 low enough that it would strike a semi if there 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.120 was a semi on the road. It's that low. It's 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.399 going underwires. It's it's amazing. Uh. It's a it's a 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.239 very dangerous profession. In fact, it often falls into the 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:31.960 top ten dangerous professions list every year. Usually it's it's 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:34.439 two or you know, number two, three, four somewhere in 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:38.480 there behind UH, fishers, you know, anybody who's fishing Alaskan 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.240 fishermen or whatever. Yeah, that's why they call it deadliest catch. Yeah, 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.560 and loggers. Loggers I think are usually like number one 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.560 and two between fishers and loggers. And then UH, aircraft pilots. 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.800 I think they kind of lumped them in with airline pilots, 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:55.360 you know, like UM passenger airlines and uh like bush pilots. 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.879 Bush pilots and crop dusters likely account for most of 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.840 the deaths in that because of the terrain that they 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.399 fly and how low they fly, right, the conditions are 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.919 inherently more risk exactly right. And wind farms, now we 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.479 haven't even talked about from it, but wind farming, Uh, 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.800 that is a huge danger for crop dusters, for human 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.000 crop dusters, because they often strike those poles or strike 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.720 the the rotors of course, you know, because they're flying 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.360 in these extremely fast, low vehicles, and their their focused, 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:27.840 to be honest, is on the crops. It's not necessarily 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.160 on that new wind turbine post that's just putting put 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.280 up by within the last month or so, or the 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:35.640 fifty others that are in that field. So it can 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.280 be very dangerous and and I'm glad that you know 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.200 some of these some of these drones are able to 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.119 cancel out the need for crop dusting pilots in some cases. 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:45.399 Although it would be a pretty good adrenaline rush to 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:50.120 do that. Yeah, I don't know that I would need 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.520 that much adrenaline rushed in me, but yes, I agree 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.480 that it certainly would be. I think it'd be fun, 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.400 it could be I imagine, Uh, you know, other things 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.520 to consider with this precision agriculture. I mean, there's tons 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.679 more we could talk about. For example, Uh, they often 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.760 will even explain what sort of crops would grow best 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.800 in different types of soil. And keep in mind these 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:18.200 crops all. You know, if there's one particular crop you're 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.479 you're planning on growing in part of your land, the 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.960 timing might be totally different to plant, Like for for 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.320 the ideal setting might be totally different to plant those 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:30.760 seeds than the next one, which means that you have 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.680 to start taking other complicated planning into account, like how 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:39.240 do you plant crops for one crop? Then let's say 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.040 three more weeks would go by before you have to 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.160 plant the next section would be a totally different crop. 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:46.800 How do you do that in a way that's not 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:49.000 going to damage the crops you first plant it. I 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.560 have also seen where farmers have planted soybeans in between 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:54.600 other crops. Now I don't remember if it was if 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:56.679 it was cotton and soybeans or what it happened to be, 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.800 but it's like mixed crops in the same field. That 0:20:59.880 --> 0:21:01.840 was unusual. So so that's one way around it. And 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:04.479 there's also um I know from Indiana again, I know 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:07.600 that there's a there's winter wheat you can grow in 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:09.560 the downtime. So like let's say you've got a summer 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:11.639 crop of corn or whatever it happens to be, you 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:13.800 can also plant a crop of winter wheat that that 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.120 takes up the time the rest of the year when 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:18.480 you can't grow corn. Yeah, And so this will tell 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.840 you exactly when to plant each one of those crops 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.280 and when to when to bring it in fertilizer levels 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.000