Ground Breaking Podcast Episode #3: How Public and Private Sectors Can Work Together to Reduce the FUD Factor
In the third episode of the Ground Breaking Podcast, Heather Tunstall interviews Joyce Hunter, Executive Director and Distinguished Fellow, Food, Agriculture & Health at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT), about how the ag industry can work with government organizations to ease the process of ag tech adoption. They discuss the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) that many farmers have when it comes to AI, data usage and ag tech adoption in general, and the importance of educating, collaborating, incentivizing, and setting standards in a world where innovation is accelerating at a rapid pace.
Podcast Transcript:
Heather Tunstall: Thanks for joining us. Welcome to the groundbreaking podcast. I’m Heather Tunstall, co-chair of the Global Agtech Initiative. And I’m here with Joyce Hunter, executive director and distinguished fellow for food, agriculture and healthcare at ICIT. Joyce, welcome.
Joyce Hunter: Thank you very much, Heather. Glad to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.
MORE BY GLOBAL AG TECH INITIATIVE
The VISION Conference: Transforming Agriculture Through Innovation and Collaboration
Ground Breaking Podcast Episode #2: Untangling On-Farm Data for Clear Takeaways
Tunstall: Absolutely. We’re so happy to have you and learn from your considerable expertise in so many of these topics that we’re talking about today. Right now, we’re going to talk a lot about the government and the relationship between public and private sectors and how we can leverage that for the advancement of the agriculture industry as a whole. First, before we launch those questions, I’d love to get to know a little bit more about you and your role with ICIT. So can you tell us a little bit about the program itself and your role within it?
Hunter: Absolutely. The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology – and that’s why we just referred to it as ICIT, because that is a mouthful – is a cybersecurity and critical infrastructure think tank that focuses on providing strategic advisory services to government organizations regarding critical infrastructure and cybersecurity that has an approach that we are leaning into this year that will be focusing on those things that affect people and how they work.
So food and agriculture, healthcare, water, energy, transportation, communications. Those are things that we typically cannot do without for so long. I mean, how long can you really go without eating? We’re leaning into those critical infrastructures in order to provide some services to people who want to know more about it.
We love being able to convene people. We do webinars. We do research papers. We provide what we call off-the-record, where we get both federal and industry people together in a room, maybe 15 or 20, and we talk about some of the biggest challenges and what we can do together to solve them.
Tunstall: That’s fantastic. And obviously very much necessary right now and always, but especially with the advancements coming down the pike for technology in agriculture and some of the questions around that, which we’ll get into a little bit today. Where can people find more information? What’s your website for ICIT?
Hunter: It’s www.icitech.org.
Tunstall: Wonderful. Okay, so you heard it here first. Make sure you head on over if you want to get involved with some of this highly important work that Joyce is referencing. And as I mentioned, today during our podcast, we’re going to get into a lot of the government side of things and how we can work as an industry with the government to further advance agriculture.
So first thing I want to point out is I read recently in a USDA report that only 27% of farmers and ranchers are using precision agriculture practices, which seems pretty low considering how much is available out there. Why do you suppose it’s about hovering around that 27% range?
Hunter: 95% of people who are in the agriculture business are small and medium size. So first of all, there is a high initial investment. Implementing precision agriculture often requires significant upfront investment. It plays out. The ROI is evident over time, but it’s the initial cost that can be prohibitive for many farmers, especially those with limited financial resources, the complexity and the technical knowledge, the average age of the farmers is 57 I think, you know, all depends on who you talk to, but between 57 and 62. And nine times out of 10, they like the old way of doing things, and they don’t understand and nobody has really sat down and explained it to them.
So many times we send people in with all this technobabble that’s not going to do it with these farmers. You have to tell them how much is this going to increase their yield, how much is this going to improve their accessibility? How much is this going to improve their data management challenges? So you have to answer all of those business questions, because the technology will take care of itself.
Tunstall: Yeah, and that’s a great point. And this specific statistic was around precision technology, but another huge topic is the AI component, right? So you’re talking about all of the data and not only the learning curve involved there, but some of the questions that are around AI as that’s ramping up. So, as artificial intelligence becomes more important in terms of the analysis of the data that’s collected, the insights that you gain from that and ultimately perhaps a better way of doing things operationally, what do you have to say, in terms of what’s happening right now in the adoption and the ramp up of AI in the agriculture space?
Hunter: In the agriculture space, it requires a concerted effort. Agriculture and healthcare are probably two of the organizations that have a deep, deep, deep history in being technology laggards. I mean, I’m not telling you anything out of school or anything that nobody knows.
So you have to get everybody together. You have to get the policymakers because they don’t necessarily know what’s going on down on the farm. I daresay a lot of them have never been to a farm. So, you know, we’ve got to get the policymakers and the technology providers all of the extension services that can actually reach out and give education because technology is not static, especially with AI. Technology is constantly moving.
There used to be a Moore’s Law, which means that technology would change or innovate every 18 months. But yet that I think Apple changed that. Every time Apple came out with a new version or something every six months or something like that. So and then you had all of these developers out there. So extension services leaning in and making sure that the extension services are well equipped to educate the people who are doing these kinds of things.
Agricultural organizations, everybody’s trying to play catch up right now and we have to provide support, education and the magic word: incentives. Why should they move? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s what I keep hearing. But if you can show where there is improved whatever it is that they are looking for, and every farm and every farmer’s going to be different.
If the large organizations can help with that with their small business suppliers, maybe they could. That’s a big incentive for them to offer these extension courses or classes or these suppliers that can alleviate some of the fear, uncertainty and doubt. The FUD factor.
Tunstall: The FUD factor is a big one, especially, as you say, technology is just flying. It is not slowing down in any way. It is just ramping up at that incredible pace.
Hunter: Absolutely. Yeah. And so when we talk about not only precision agricultural practices, but also AI and the multitude of technologies that are coming on board right now, what is the government’s role in the rollout of these and in the interactions with the market? Well, you know, like have I used to be the former deputy CIO and then the acting CIO for the Department of Agriculture.
So I have kind of an inside-outside view of what can be done, what should be done and why haven’t we already done it. So the first thing is that there’s a lot of research and development funding, but that also, Heather, goes back to, what farmer has the time to go look through the Federal Reserve of Federal regulations and see what’s coming out? What farmer has the time and the resources to go look through some of the grants that are available from the National Science Foundation?
So research and development funding is critically important for agriculture, including Agtech. It can support the development of new technologies such as precision agriculture, robotics, and it can enhance productivity, sustainability and resilience. So research and development funding is very, very important and I think that is the way for a lot of small and medium sized business farmers to really kind of get on the bandwagon.
Then this policy of regulation, the government establishes policy of regulation, but that also requires research and support. And so we don’t want to overregulate anything. Environmental protection and food safety is very important. We want to be able to protect all of our food from the dirt to the table. We have to have clear and supportive regulatory frameworks. Unfortunately, what has happened is the horse has already left the barn and the cart is before the horse.
In this particular aspect, even the Chat GPT thing took off and I don’t think anybody really expected it to take off that fast. Some of the challenges is that states are developing their own policies, the government is developing their own policies. You have a mess. There is Representative Colmer and Raskin in Congress are trying to wrangle all of these regulations.
They determined that there are about 200 state, local, and federal government-led pieces of legislation that are out there. Can you imagine what a mess that can cause? Because you’re going to have a lot of conflicting regulations and policies. So we’ve got to get our arms around this rather quickly so that we can have one standard set of rules and regulations and policies so that everybody knows what they’re doing. Who’s on first.
Tunstall: Right, exactly. And, you know, we talked a little bit about some of the barriers for farmers to adopt some of these technologies. Right. We’ve got the FUD factor. We’ve got the inconsistent no standardization. We’ve got the upfront costs. These are all known challenges, right? So when we’re talking about these in relation to how the industry can work with the government, you know, I think it expands beyond just the farmers with the government, but also includes the supplier side as well. So can you talk a little bit about what that looks like in terms of how agtech suppliers and farmers can work with the government to make adoption more achievable?
Hunter: Government and as well as suppliers, the large suppliers can offer subsidies, grants, tax incentives, low interest loans to farmers to encourage the adoption of agriculture technology. Most of these financial and centers can help offset the costs associated with purchasing and implementing new technologies.
Maybe even some of the small businesses can go into a cooperative and they can share some of those resources. There are a lot of organizations now, particularly startup organizations, that are sharing a CFO or sharing a CSO and chief information security officer. So the burden does not have to be on one particular farm or one particular individual. They can share that information. So subsidies and incentives.
I think they’ve got to do better with broadband. There are still so many farms out there that just don’t have the capability of doing that. And, you know, you got to look at what’s happening in industry right now. John Deere just signed this huge deal with SpaceX. We’re going to put satellites up in the air. And I know this is going to freak some people out, but they’re going to put satellites in space that’s going to be able to get the data and be able to disseminate it much more quickly than they have in the past. So your broadband networks and agriculture extension services that will improve the connectivity will provide farmers with access to this information, education and support related to Agtech adoption.
Tunstall: You know, that’s interesting you point out the deal with John Deere and SpaceX, and while that is bringing broadband connectivity to some of these rural areas, some of these farmers that have had more challenges with adopting high tech because of that. So when we have something like that, when we have a major development where it does enable that, but then there’s the fear, the FUD factor again, when it comes to data collection. Can you speak a little bit to that from somebody in the industry, specifically on the cybersecurity side and specifically on tech enablement, what do you have to say to farmers who have that fear of their data being collected and shared?
Hunter: That’s a that’s a big thing, right? I have friends who – I’ll just give this a little analogy. I’m planning an 85th birthday party for a good friend of ours. And I was the the treasurer for this event and getting people to send me their donation over Cash app or Venmo, I got so much pushback from, you know, just like guys, you got to come into the 21st century and they were not having any of it. Yeah, they wanted to give me cash or a check and I’m like, I don’t have checks anymore. So that’s a big thing is part of that is, you know, the government and I hate saying this, but, you know, a lot of people still have that fear that they’re the government. “We’re the government and we’re here to help.” But the government can really facilitate this data sharing and established standards and standards for interoperability among agtech systems and platforms.
They did in healthcare about 15, 20 years ago, we developed something called HITSP the Health Information Technology Standards Panel, where we developed a number of standards for interoperability among healthcare systems. We could do the same thing in agriculture, so we could have established standards for interoperability. HITSP promoted collaboration, innovation and integration of technologies across the healthcare value chain while ensuring compatibility and data security. And we could do the same in the agriculture area.
Tunstall: You know, you’re talking a lot about how there can be interoperability with the appropriate guardrails and standards in place, right. And how private and public can work together towards the greater good of the industry, that country, and ultimately the world. Right. We’re talking really big things here. So you know, for those who are on board theoretically and they would love to implement some of these new technologies they’re all in on, let’s make this happen and share data, right? Once we get them there, what advice do you have for getting started to implement ag technology for more environmental and business sustainability and people who don’t quite know where to begin?
Hunter: You know, I would reach out to organizations or even attend conferences like Vision or Tech Hub. That’s where you can find out a lot of information without having to subscribe to one particular one. Because at these conferences and forums and seminars, then you get the information from both entrepreneurs and also practitioners as well as executives, or get their vision, no pun intended. You can get their vision on where their technology is going and then you can make those right decisions. Or you could, you know, like I said, you could go to all of these industry groups and ask questions or, you know, you can come to organizations like ICIT or could convene a number of people, places and technologies to come together in off the record dialog so that you can ask questions and make better decisions.
Tunstall: Wonderful. And then, Joyce, just to close, is there anything else you’d like to mention that you think people should keep in mind in terms of just government relationship with the the farmer, the tech supplier, the industry as a whole, how we can all work together during these major tech ramp-ups?
Hunter: Agriculture is highly fragmented with a wide diversity of crop farm sizes and production systems. The fragmentation can complicate the adoption of agtech and technologies need to be adaptable to different farming practices, some regional conditions and the digital divide, again, and know we’ve got to allow for utilizing digital agtech tools across the spectrum. The digital divide hinders the adoption of precision agriculture, remote sensing and other tech into practices of rural farming. I’m going to hammer this hard: data ownership and privacy concerns. Farmers are concerned and we need to address those concerns so they may be hesitant to share their data. And it seems like the way the John Deere and Bayer and some of the other recent announcements, everything is going digital. So we’ve got to get the farmers on board. And if they plan on passing their farms down to their younger people in their family, they’re not going to go back to the old way of doing things. It’s just not going to happen. So if you want to retain and not have a brain drain in the agriculture community, you’ve got to tell these young people that agriculture is no longer Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres.
Tunstall: Yeah, yeah. And you know, you’re talking a lot about that succession planning and how it’s going to increase the adoption of technology in some cases. But that education component is so vital for that.
Hunter: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Tunstall: Okay. Wonderful. Joyce, thank you so much. Joyce is one of our Women in Ag Tech ambassadors. We are so grateful for her. This is a meeting that convenes at some of the major events that Joyce mentioned at Vision and Tech Hub Live. Our next meeting will be at Tech Hub live in July in Des Moines, and you’ll get to hear from like-minded individuals such as Joyce and our fellow Women in Ag Tech. So we encourage you to take part in that. Otherwise you know we also convene on LinkedIn quite often and GlobalAgtechInitiative.com. Joyce has been a wonderful voice in that area and again, we thank her for her expertise today.
So Joyce, thank you so much for joining us today.
Hunter: You’re welcome. And as I always do in all my presentations, live long and prosper.
Tunstall: We are so grateful for you. Thank you. Again, this has been the Ground Breaking podcast with the Global Ag Tech Initiative.
Subscribe Today For
