Using the Cloud to Connect Farmers to Consumers Serves Opportunities to Both, With a Side of Efficiency
Panelists examine how cloud computing technology is moving the agriculture industry beyond on-farm connectivity to data interoperability during the session “Cloud Computing: Connecting Farmers to Consumers”. From left: Sachi Desai, Senior Director – Strategy, Bayer; Alain Goubau, CEO of Combyne Ag; Sona Raziabeegum, Senior Strategy Director, CNH Industrial; and Aaron Hutchinson, Co-Founder and President of CropTrak.
Editor’s note: Cloud computing technology is moving the agriculture industry beyond on-farm connectivity to data interoperability from the farmgate all the way to the end consumer. This key topic was discussed at the recent VISION Conference during the session “Cloud Computing Connecting Farmers to Consumers”. In this article, Jan Johnson of Millennium Research shares insight from the session’s panelists.
“The Cloud” has become an easy short-hand answer for almost every complex digital question. But what is it really, and how will it help farmers, consumers and everyone in between?
Well, the cloud may not quite be the easy button everyone hopes for, but it is an “easier button,” providing essential functions on the platform you choose, such as Amazon, Microsoft, or Google. It provides the technical part of computing, so that their customers, whether they are consumer packaged goods (CPG) giants or individual farm operators, can concentrate on solving the unique problems they have.
Cloud computing offers a platform that is available to everyone, collects data from disparate places, and stores the data in a space accessible from anywhere with internet. The new demands for sustainability and traceability, more precise tracking and recording of chemical and fertilizer applications, and greater efficiency throughout the food system, in addition to the complexity that already exists in the food chain, means that the cloud can be the go-to solution to connect all the dots, from the field to the kitchen table.
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Aaron Hutchinson, Co-Founder and President of CropTrak, has been one of the innovators in using cloud solutions to maximize efficiency in fresh produce. In 2009, Hutchinson, using his background in military technology, knew that cloud computing could be used to integrate communication and data throughout the food supply chain to not only increase optimization and speed, but also to meet new government standards set in the food safety traceability rule, signed in 2011 and goes into effect in 2023. This rule mandates a 24-hour, end-to-end supply chain digital tracing response. This means an almost immediate and transparent digital record of everything that transpires in growing, processing, transporting, and manufacturing food items.
“Food companies want to make money. So we’re really worried about: do we need to move things around a logistics perspective so that we end up with good profitability. We’re looking at how things are being processed, making suggestions on how you can do better, be more efficient,” he says. “As an added benefit, If you don’t throw that produce away, then you don’t waste water, nitrogen, land, energy. We want to help our clients be good stewards of the world.”
Data interoperability is a crucial benefit of cloud computing, but you still have to collect the right data. One expert says the industry’s approach to data has been similar to Halloween candy — get all you can and then at the end, decide what you want, and throw away the rest. That approach has actually slowed adoption, and now companies are focused on capturing necessary data at high quality.
“Our premise right now is to capture the data in the quantity, quality, and veracity that we need,” says Sona Raziabeegum, Senior Director of Global Strategy, Precision Technology at CNH Industrial, “and to enable that data to lead our platforms and go to other partner platforms so that our farmers will benefit from that collaboration. The journey that we are on is to take information and turn it into insights.”
Taking data from many different sources and integrating it into one simple-to-use application for grain farmers is the goal of Combyne, a company started by Alain Goubau, who watched his father struggle with keeping track of all his grain production, marketing, delivery, and getting paid. “We sit at the intersection of information that resides on the farm about the quantity and quality of grain that a farmer has to sell, and the off-farm interaction he has with the various buyers he might sell to. Our aim is to make it simple and easy for the user to manage grain inventory, marketing, and payment without having to do a lot of data entry and we do that through automation.”
This ties into CNH’s goals for the future. “Our equipment focus is shifted, building bigger, strong fast equipment to building equipment that more precise, smarter and connected. And we are very much in the world of the IOT world,” notes Raziabeegum from CNH. “And we have to do it in a way that doesn’t disrupt the farmer’s process, otherwise it won’t be adopted.”
Understanding the farmer is a key value proposition for Combyne, which has two full-time consumer researchers talking to farmers about what they do and what would make an app valuable enough for them to use. “These are very complex processes that need to be understood fully before we can design something that actually helps the farmer,” notes Goubau.
While Combyne has clearly identified the grain farmer as their customer, others in the space haven’t been as clear, and it’s hurt forward progress, says Sachi Desai, Corporate Strategy Manager for Bayer (Climate Corp). “I really think that when approaching the whole issue of connecting farmers to consumers, the question is, how do you define your customer? I think these customers all along the food chain can be slightly different or very different. And then how do you think about bringing them into the opportunity?”
That opportunity, in addition to meeting new laws, might be having the digital information to match the farmer’s practices to the consumer’s demand. Find a consumer niche for carbon-neutral popcorn?
“If I’m a buyer for grain and I am in the European Union, I need to make sure that grain delivered to me meets EU regulations,” says Desai. “If I’m a farmer and I’m looking to sell my grain as low carbon, this offers me the opportunity to either find those buyers or have those buyers find me.”
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