Monsanto Co. and other companies are racing to roll out "prescriptive planting" technology to farmers across the U.S., according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Jacob Bunge.
Some farmers worry their data might be sold to commodities traders, wind up in the hands of rival farmers or give more leverage to giant seed companies that are among the most enthusiastic sellers of data-driven planting advice, Lunge writes. The companies vow not to misuse the information.
Many tractors and combines already are guided by Global Positioning System satellites that plant ever-straighter rows while farmers, freed from steering, monitor progress on iPads and other tablet computers now common in tractor cabs. The same machinery collects data on crops and soil.
Sellers of prescriptive-planting technology want to accelerate, streamline and combine all those data with their highly detailed records on historic weather patterns, topography and crop performance. The world's biggest seed company, Monsanto, estimates that data-driven planting advice to farmers could increase world-wide crop production by about $20 billion a year, or about one-third the value of last year's U.S. corn crop. For more information, read "Big Data Comes to the Farm" at the Wall Street Journal.Want to continue reading?
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