By Gregg Wartgow
“There are two ways to make money on a farm,” said Mike Mills, director of sustainability solutions at AEM member company Reinke Manufacturing, a manufacturer of irrigation systems. “You can sell your product for more or spend less producing it.”
It’s been a tall task for row crop farmers on both of those fronts in recent years.
“Input costs for things like fertilizer and pesticides have continued to rise, and unfortunately the price of commodities have not,” said Adam Barlow, manager of technology standards and regulatory affairs for precision agriculture technologies at AEM member company John Deere. “When you look at the price of corn today, it’s about where it was in the 1980s.”
That leaves few options for the profit-conscious crop farmer, aside from trying to reduce the amount of costly inputs they use.
“This is what precision ag helps accomplish,” Barlow pointed out. “By applying inputs more precisely, farmers are able to use less of them.”
In many instances, farmers are also able to produce more.
“It’s not always about a reduction in inputs,” said Austin Gellings, senior director of agricultural services at AEM. “It’s more about applying inputs as efficiently as possible. Crop output per pound of fertilizer used has increased significantly over the years. That’s a tangible benefit that makes farmers more profitable.”
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