WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: High Tech Farming 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:15.040 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.000 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.919 and hold the tech are you? It's time for a 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:25.240 tech Stuff classic episode. This episode originally published July six, 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:30.479 two thousand fifteen. This titled High Tech Farming and Scott 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.839 Benjamin joined me for this show. I hope you're doing well, Scott, 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:36.880 miss your buddy, and yeah, let's sit back and listen 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:42.479 to this classic episode. I was amazed at how technology 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:48.000 is rapidly changing the face of agriculture because in my mind, 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.920 it's one of those things that's been kind of set 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.280 technologically speaking for decades, and it just shows how how 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.160 ignorant I was of the whole thing. I had just 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.800 a tiny bit of insight on this UM Our listener, 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.680 our listening audience UM back in two thousand and ten. 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:05.600 I think we did an episode about some of the 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:07.480 some of the stuff that was happening back then. But 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:10.640 even since two thousand ten, there's been a lot of advances. 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.320 But we have a few listeners in our audience that, UM, 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:15.640 you know, where their their ranch hands or the work 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:17.360 on the farm and they listen to the podcast as 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.800 they you know, or killing the fields or whatever they're 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.600 doing tending to the herd. And um, they said, you 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:25.080 know what would be really interesting I don't think a 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.320 lot of people know about this is just how advanced 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:31.360 tractors are becoming, Just how advanced, um, you know, barnes 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.280 themselves are becoming. It's not just the machinery, it's also 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.319 you know, everything that goes around around growing or or 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:44.319 umvest harvesting and like maximum potential yields. All that has 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.680 to do with with modern technology more or less now, 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.320 I guess, um, it's all becoming pushed far more into 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.080 the future than you would ever think. Yeah, And and 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.600 it's interesting because we're at a time where we're seeing 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:03.760 a decreasingly small percentage of the population being dedicated to 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.840 the roles of ranching and farming. Right if you look 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:09.560 at United States history, this is particularly true in the 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:11.320 U S, but you can see it in other places 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.000 as well. If you look at the beginning of the 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:18.200 twentieth century, so around nineteen hundred or so, about half 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.840 of the population of the United States were farmers. And 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.200 then you get to and before that was even larger numbers. 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.320 Um the percentage wise, you know, obviously the population itself 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.040 was smaller, but percentage wise it was there were many 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.560 more farmers. And what happened was this little thing called 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.320 the Industrial Revolution. You've probably heard that term, Scott, Yeah, 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.720 I figured you might. So the Industrial Revolution actually meant 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:47.320 the mechanization of lots of different industries, including agriculture. And 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:51.560 so around nineteen hundred, your chief means of operating the 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:58.040 various machines in agriculture were it was horsepower, literal horsepower, 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.120 actually using horses. Yeah, it wasn't until the nineteen twenties 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:07.840 nineteen thirties the tractors really started to get traction in agriculture. 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.440 And then, oh boy, I'm gonna have to leave. I know, 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:14.519 I'm sorry, it's I've lost somebody co hosts this way. Actually, 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.160 to be fair, Chris, Chris was way worse about puns 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:22.600 than I was. He was punk. Yeah, but at any rate. Yeah, So, 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:26.040 so you get to the nineteen fifties nineteen sixties, those 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:31.520 numbers start increasing, but as the mechanization increases, the number 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.280 or the percentage of population that needs to be farmers 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.360 or ranchers decreased, because you didn't need that much labor, right, 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:43.080 you were able to offload the labor to to mechanization 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:45.320 to some extent. Sure. Well, how many times have we 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:47.360 heard in the past, I mean, in the past decade 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.400 even that very soon the world population is going to 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.240 outpace the capability that we have to produce food for 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.960 that population. Sure, And it's always I mean, I've I've 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:58.400 heard this for a long long time. It's not just 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.840 ten years, maybe of years or even even longer than that. 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.680 Probably I just haven't been privy to that information. But 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:06.720 it always seems like they say the world's population will 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.840 exceed the world's capacity to produce food by the year X, 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.360 and the year X is always about twenty years out, 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.200 ten or twenty years out, and and it always seems 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:18.960 like we always overcome then some way. So and this 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.280 is I found this interesting. I found an article um 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.520 in the Guardian fromen that was talking about developing nations 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:28.760 and uh some innovations, some revolutionary farming innovations, and they 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.360 said that in the last fifty years agricultural production has 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:36.000 actually tripled in the last fifty years. Azing. Well, the 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.279 thing is you're saying that the number of farmers has 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:42.719 gone down the number. The amount of production has tripled 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.720 in the last fifty years. So they're becoming more efficient 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.680 and every year that's a challenge for them to become 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:52.240 more and more efficient with less and less people, less 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.240 and less property to do so, because you know, the 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.880 the farmland is at a premium right now in a 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.360 lot of countries, a lot of places that um, they're 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.320 they're severe government restrictions on the amount of space that 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:08.479 you're allowed to use for a farm. They're they're building structures, 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.479 you know, so that they're building up instead of out. Um. 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:13.479 And that's a way to increase efficiency and and it 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:16.680 really a productivity and yields from their crops no matter 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.720 what it is, it's tomatoes, cucumbers, whatever happens to be. Uh, 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.599 some of these things that they're even finding that building um, 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.120 you know, here's the difference. Like instead of building a 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.720 six ft roof or an eight foot roof on a greenhouse, 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:29.760 if they put a twelve foot roof on a greenhouse, 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.479 they can double production. And I think it was tomatoes 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.200 and cucumbers. That's pretty incredible. Yeah, So things like that, 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.400 small things like that can make a big, big difference. 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.080 And you know, you're talking about the increase in population. 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:43.440 The number you're going to find if you do some 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.400 searches on this on Google. I think the number that's 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.560 most frequently cited is about by twenty fifty, we're looking 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.359 at nine point two billion people on Earth. I have 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:55.480 today's number, by the way, Okay, I looked at it 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.400 just this morning, so as of today, it's about seven 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.760 point three billion people. And I watched the counter for 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.559 a short amount of time. There's a pretty interesting site 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:07.640 called um it's called world ometers dot info, and it's 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.039 just a world population clock really, but you can watch 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.080 all kinds of numbers as they go up and down 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.000 depending on what you're looking at. But pretty fascinating. Seven 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.920 point three billion as of now. But it's steadily clicking up. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.839 That's pretty yeah, I mean, it's it's amazing. It's also 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.640 a little sobering because once we hit nine point two 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.599 billion people, the other estimations say that at that point 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:33.440 by we will need to have increased food production from 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:38.880 today's standards by another seventy okay question here though, all right, 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.920 here's here's now. They know the numbers are staggering, and 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:43.680 if you look back at that way, you look at 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:45.200 that site that I was just talking about today, and 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.039 I didn't write down all these numbers because it was 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.200 just way too much. There's a lot of information there, 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.520 and it's it's all stats. It's a pretty fascinating site. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:53.840 But they said that in this is just to give 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.640 you an idea of in the seventy there were roughly 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:58.760 half as many people in the world as there are today. 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:01.960 That means we've doubled since nineteen seventy that short amount 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.840 of time. Now they say that due to growth rate decreases, 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.200 it'll take about two hundred years that population to double again. 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:10.960 But then I look at that number and I think, well, 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.400 how many people were there in nineteen seventy There must 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.960 have been um, roughly three and a half billion people. Ballpark. Well, 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.160 they're talking about going from you know, seven and a 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:24.440 half billion up to fifteen billion people. That's why, because 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.000 it's an additional seven and a half billion people instead 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:31.040 of four billion people. So maybe that's the reason. But still, uh, 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:33.560 the disparity between the number of you know, what is 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:37.880 that forty five years and you know, um, two hundred years. 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.760 That's that's an incredible amount of time. I mean, so 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.000 how does all that factor into I mean, there's so 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.640 many numbers here at play that had a hard time 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.480 figuring out where we stand as far as when the 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:50.320 food's going to run out. Well, I think it's even 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:54.600 more complicated than that, Scott, because also we're seeing more 0:07:54.720 --> 0:08:00.200 countries kind of emerge from developing to getting to developed status, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:05.240 as people become more affluent, as they as middle classes 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:09.800 begin to emerge in various populations. One of the first 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.920 markers of that is that people want access to a 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.360 better diet that includes more variety of foods and a 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:21.520 higher quality of those foods. So not only are we 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.520 going to need to increase production in order to meet 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.800 the needs of a growing population, but we need to 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.480 make sure that that is a varied approach, not like 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:35.880 well we'll just we'll just grow more rice or more 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:37.920 grains of some sort. It has to actually be a 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.200 variety of foods, which means that we have to start 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:44.200 really looking at strategies um for multiple reasons. And so 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.440 I'm wondering, when you were doing your research here we're 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.480 going into ag tech, did you come across the term 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:55.320 precision agriculture. This is exciting stuff. I think it is. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.520 I mean it really comes down to what you would call, 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:59.880 I guess a smart farm. Yeah, And I don't know 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:01.680 that's a term or if that's something I came up 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.600 with her, I came across it somewhere, but but it 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.760 does seem to me like it's smart farming. And exactly 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:08.640 that's exactly right. I mean, it's just in the same 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:10.720 way that you would think of a smart home. This 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.920 is very apt. But precision farming. I mean that that's 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.160 it seems so odd because that's something that we never 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.520 would have heard of maybe ten years ago, fifteen years ago. 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:21.360 It just wasn't that way it was, and it wasn't 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:23.800 haphazard by any means, right, It was just that it 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.560 wasn't to the to the inch precise as it is today. 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.079 I mean, sure that the farmer would see until his 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:34.400 road um in his road, his field in straight rows, 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.080 and he would know that I can get roughly this 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:38.480 amount of seeds in this row and etcetera. But now 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:40.719 we're down to planning to the very inch to get 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.280 that maximum yield and to the very second, like not 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:46.960 just not just in in distance, but in time as well. 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.600 So in ages past, you knew you planted in the 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.560 spring and you would harvest in the fall. But with 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.240 precision agriculture, it is not a joke to say you're 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.640 going to want to plant on Wednesday. Like you can 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.560 end up getting data that is so precise and it's 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.560 dependent upon multiple factors. Right, So we're talking about a 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.120 lot of different technologies and processes that have to work 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.000 for precision agriculture to work. So I'm just gonna run 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.360 down some of them. You need sensors. Those sensors are 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.640 going to detect things like humidity, the moisture level in 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.959 the in the soil, the actual acidity of the soil, 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:29.200 the chemical composition. You want to have other sensors that 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.480 can detect when plants need water. There's actually a sensor 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.360 that is a leaf sensor. It attaches to a leaf 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:42.040 and it measures the change in voltage that happens when 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:46.160 the leaf contracts. Now, a contracting leaf is an indicator 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:51.000 that the plant needs water. Yeah, so you get imagine 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.280 you are a farmer and you get alert on your 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.600 smartphone that says you need to water the fields today 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.840 because this is an early indicator that the plants are 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:02.680 in are quote unquote thirsty, which is pretty incredible. I 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.440 hate to work in a nursery and uh, like a 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:07.960 tree nursery, not not a baby nursery, but a tree nursery. 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:09.800 And uh, you know some of these hot summer days 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.160 in July and August. I'll he how we knew when 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:13.640 we had to water is what we looked at the 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:16.320 field of trees, you know, the entire nursery and said, 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:18.200 it looks like they're a little wilted with better throw 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:20.040 some water on the plants. Right, That's what we did. 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:21.720 I mean it was it was just kind of seat 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.079 of the pants stuff. And and there's less and less 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.440 seat of the pants farming going on now. It's more precise, 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.160 as you said. And those sensors I mean that you mentioned. 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:32.240 It's not just that there's sensors and you have to 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.840 go to a central location even to to read or 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.760 monitor those. You don't have to can Some of them 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:41.960 will send mobile alerts to the farmer via smartphone. Yeah, 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:46.160 they're all these these systems now that you can put 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.840 in place at your farm that allows these sensors to 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:54.079 interact with a network and alert you to minute changes 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.880 so that you can make big decisions with the best technology, 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.400 the best information available. Other tech that you will see. 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:06.000 In precision agriculture include satellites or drones, and these are 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.320 specifically to monitor the status of crops throughout the year 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:13.640 so that you can determine what the maturity level of 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.040 the crops happens to be at any given point. You know, 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:19.280 you want to harvest the crops at the right maturity 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:24.320 level so that you minimize crop loss because obviously if 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.720 you if you go too early, then stuff isn't right yet. 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:28.720 You're not gonna be able to sell all the crops 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.120 that you harvest if you go too late. Same sort 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.280 of problem, except of course on the other side of it, 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.400 so you want to be able to get the crops. 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:40.640 You want to harvest them when it's absolutely at their peak, 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.920 and that way you maximize the yield, you minimize the loss. 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.360 These are all different factors that go into the idea 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.560 of precision agriculture. Meanwhile, on the on the software side, 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:57.400 you have to have computer algorithms that are incredibly sophisticated 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:59.880 so that they can crunch these numbers and make it 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.920 meaningful information that farmers can act on. In other words, 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.920 they provide information that can can build maps visual visual 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:11.040 representations of what your field looks like what what the 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.720 terrain you're talking about looks like, Um, you know, where 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.319 their hot spots are, where the plants are growing and 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:18.720 their best where they're not growing quite so well? What 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.199 the reasons could be behind that? They may analyze, Uh, 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.000 you know, why this this one sector of the field 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.000 isn't maybe producing as much as it possibly could versus 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:33.080 this sector that's just one yards away yet is is overproducing. 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.120 It's producing more than they expected. And why is that? 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.840 Maybe they can you know, learn something from that section 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.720 or sector and uh and incorporate that into the next 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.560 year's crop. We'll be back with more of this classic 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:54.520 episode of tech stuff after this quick break. If you're 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.400 looking at farms, the overwhelming majority of farms in the 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:01.640 US are family owned and operated, right ninety Like in 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:04.840 the nine upper ninety percentile. Only less than five percent 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.800 of farms in the United States are owned by non 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:13.920 family operated corporations. So even though they're they're huge, we're 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.599 talking about like craft would own a giant farm or 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:18.280 something like, right, you know that they would they would 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.640 grow their own products, yes, or monsanto or you know 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.680 there's tons of them, right, but at any rate, Uh, 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:27.800 that only that only accounts for less than five percent 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.000 of all the farms in the United States. However, the 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.880 midsized farms are slowly getting edged out. In the US. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.640 You've got a lot of small farms that are doing 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.840 all right, particularly in markets where there's a high value 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:43.400 placed on organic farming that kind of thing, and local 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:48.000 is localized farming, um, but it's mostly turning into really 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.400 big farms and small farms in the midsize farms are 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:52.640 starting to get weeded out. But with those big farms, 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:56.760 you can have such a huge farm that it is 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:00.560 completely possible that one part of your land is getting 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:06.080 adequate moisture from a weather system moving through and another 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.800 part isn't. And this is the kind of technology. These sensors, 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.840 the the drones, and the satellite imagery are the kind 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.560 of things that tell you, oh, the southern part of 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.840 my farm is fine, that's the weather system came through 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:24.560 provide enough water, but the northern part is in need 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.120 of irrigating, So then you can irrigate just the parts 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:34.240 of your farm that needed saving water. It also means 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:38.560 that one of the important technologies with precision agriculture is 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:43.680 incredibly accurate weather forecasting. It's incredibly important. And you can 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.400 extrapolate this to ranching as well livestock and herds, because 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:51.800 you know, they're they're enormous ranches in Texas and California, Montana, 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.960 Montana that are are the exact same thing you're talking about, 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.480 where weather systems moved through and only affect maybe the 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.920 southern era southeast eatern corner of that of that ranch. 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.080 And it's very possible that you know, the ranchers might 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.280 decide I'm gonna move my my flock, my herd out 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.560 of that region in time to avoid that blizzard or 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.360 that that that horrific thunderstorm that's going to come through 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.400 on Wednesday, or you know, whatever it happened to be. 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.120 So ranchers deal with a lot of the same things. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.560 And of course we're talking about food production still, so 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.120 all kind of ties in. Can I say one more 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.000 thing about drones before we move on? In fact, maybe 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:28.480 a little bit more than one thing, But of course 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:32.840 there's the obvious uses for them monitoring crops um you know, 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.360 looking at you know, distant or remote locations that um 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:38.400 or are difficult to get to for a farmer, so 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:40.840 that you know, you can daily fly a drone up 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.200 the hillside and look at your your coffee crop or 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.880 whatever it happens to be. UM. You know people that 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.560 use terraced farms, you know for space and and UM 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.120 you know, just irrigation capabilities I guess, or you know whatever, 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.200 so that it's the most optimal way to grow crops. 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.800 It might be the most difficult to also reach by 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.120 foot so or by vehicle. UH, drones kind of eliminate 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.200 all that. And the other thing that is really really 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:09.400 important is that UM drones are capable of delivering fertilizer 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.440 and insecticide at precise locations. So you know, the maps 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.199 that we just talked about. With the software programs that 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.320 create maps and and show you exactly how crops are 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:23.800 growing in certain regions or sectors, you can precisely accurately 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.399 deliver the right amount of insecticides or or pesticides or 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.359 whatever happens to be that you need in that area 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.240 to that just that one sector via a drone you know, 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.399 as a sprayer underneath. And whether we're talking about you know, 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.760 small helicopters or UM. You know the quad copters that 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.760 we see often kind of eight eight one of the octicopters. 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.520 UM they replace. Uh, you know the guys that would 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.000 fly in those crop dusters. Have you ever seen a 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:54.119 crop duster in action? Okay, they're they are fascinating, aren't they. 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.160 I mean you see there, those guys are like daredevils. 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.680 I mean it's like the best um um air show 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.439 stunt you've ever seen when you see them going really 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:06.000 i mean remarkably low elt street. What's it's startling if 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:08.200 you're in let's say that you're driving through the Midwest. 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.199 You're in Indiana, Ohio, somewhere in there, and uh, you know, 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.040 maybe two yards ahead of you you see an airplane 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:16.879 buzz through that's low enough that it would strike a 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.240 semi if there was a semi on the road. It's 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.640 that low. It's going underwires. It's it's amazing. Uh. It's 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.560 a it's a very dangerous profession. In fact, it often 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:29.400 falls in the top ten Dangerous professions list every year. 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.640 Usually it's it's two or you know, number two, three, 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.760 four somewhere in there behind. Uh. Fishers, you know, anybody 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.879 who's fishing Alaskan fishermen or whatever. Yeah, that's why they 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:41.479 call it deadlyest catch yea, and loggers. Loggers I think 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.439 are usually like number one and two between fishers and laggers, 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.080 and then uh, aircraft pilots. I think they kind of 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.439 lumped them in with airline pilots, you know, like um 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:55.520 passenger airlines and uh like bush pilots. Bush pilots and 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.359 crop dusters likely account for most of the deaths in 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:00.960 that field because of the terrain that they fly in, 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:05.400 how low they fly, the conditions are inherently more risk 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.440 exactly right. And wind farms, now we haven't even talked 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.240 about from it, but wind farming, uh, that is a 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.560 huge danger for crop dusters, for human crop dusters, because 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:18.680 they often strike those poles or strike the the rotors 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.440 of course, you know, because they're flying in these extremely 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.840 fast low vehicles, and their their focused, to be honest, 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.160 is on the crops. It's not necessarily on that new 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.520 wind turbine post that's just putting put up by within 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:32.920 the last month or so, or the fifty others that 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.280 are in that field. So it can be very dangerous. 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:37.640 And and I'm glad that you know some of these 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:39.919 some of these drones are able to cancel out the 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.320 need for crop dusting pilots in some cases, although it 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:46.520 would be a pretty good adrenaline rush to do that. Yeah, 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:50.000 I don't know that I would need that much adrenaline 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.040 rushed in me, but yes, I agree that it certainly 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.240 would be I think it'd be fun. It could be. 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.880 I imagine, Uh, you know the other things to consider 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.399 with this precision act your culture. I mean, there's tons 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.520 more we could talk about. For example, Uh, they often 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:08.560 will even explain what sort of crops would grow best 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.680 in different types of soil, and keep in mind these 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:17.080 crops all. You know, if there's one particular crop you're 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.359 you're planning on growing in part of your land, the 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.840 timing might be totally different to plant, Like for for 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.879 the ideal setting, it might be totally different to plant 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:29.480 those seeds than the next one, which means that you 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.639 have to start taking other complicated planning into account, like 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:37.680 how do you plant crops for one crop, then let's 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.800 say three more weeks would go by before you have 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:43.400 to plant the next section that would be a totally 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:45.359 different crop. How do you do that in a way 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.560 that's not going to damage the crops you first plant it. 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.960 I have also seen where farmers have planted soybeans in 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.119 between other crops. Now I don't remember if it was 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:55.359 if it was cotton and soybeans or what it happened 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.520 to be, but it's like mixed crops in the same field. Yeah, 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:00.639 that was unusual. So so that's one way around it. 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.240 And there's also, um I know from Indiana again, I 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.359 know that there's a there's winter wheat you can grow 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:08.159 in the downtime. So like, let's see, you've got a 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:10.119 summer crop of corn or whatever it happens to be, 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:12.520 you can also plant a crop of winter wheat that 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:14.800 that takes up the time the rest of the year 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.160 when you can't grow corn. Yeah, And so this will 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:19.320 tell you exactly when to plant each one of those 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.479 crops and when to when to bring it in right 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:25.639 fertilizer levels that I mean, I guess soil levels that 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:27.560 you need to to watch for each crop. You know, 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.520 whether it would let you know when you would need 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.919 to add fertilizer to those those fields as well, including 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:38.480