Precision Ag Technology Boosts Land Values for Users
Precision ag technology began in the early 1990s with widespread use of yield monitors in combines that would generate maps of fields based on the grain flow into the hopper as the machine moved up and down the fields, writes Dan Manternach at CropLife. Early adopters of precision ag technology were often described as being on the “bleeding edge” of adoption because the costs so often exceeded any measurable increase in profitability.
That’s no longer the case. In fact, Forbes magazine ran a 2019 feature with the headline: “By Raising Productivity, Ag Tech Boosts the Value of Farmland.”
In that article, Bill Lapp, president of Omaha-based Advanced Economic Solutions noted “Widespread adoption of technologies that have increased output per acre, as well as reducing production costs, have been the primary catalyst for rising land values in the U.S. and globally.“