Are 'tech dense' farms the future of farming?

"Jake Leguee is a third-generation farmer in Saskatchewan, Canada. Since his grandfather bought the 17,000 acres in 1956, the Leguee family has grown canola, wheat, flax and green lentils. As a child, he watched his father and grandfather spending hours riding their tractor to sow seeds and spray crops. Sweat would coat their shirts after those long, hot days. "It was a lot less efficient back then," says Leguee."

"With software and remote cameras attached to his John Deere tractor, he can kill the weeds much more efficiently, a practice every farmer has to do before planting seeds. "It can look down and spray a nozzle when the sensors pick a weed, while we're going around 15 miles an hour," Leguee says. He adds that he saves on pesticide spray since the nozzles only turn on when weeds are detected, as opposed to the kind of blanket spraying he used to do."

A third-generation Saskatchewan farmer uses software and remote cameras on a John Deere to detect weeds and trigger individual nozzles while operating at about 15 miles per hour, significantly reducing pesticide use compared with blanket spraying. Low-cost digital solutions, such as record-keeping apps, can also improve operational efficiency and deliver high return on investment. A 2024 McKinsey survey found 57% of North American farmers likely to try new yield-increasing technologies within two years. USDA reporting indicates that although farm numbers are shrinking, the farms that remain are becoming more technology-dense.

Read at www.bbc.com