June 27, 2019

This article will be featured along with other articles addressing investment opportunities in agriculture technology and surrounding themes in the GAI Gazette, Volume 6, Issue 2, which will be distributed in conjunction with the 5th annual AgTech Nexus USA event, held in Chicago on July 22-23, 2019. Join us in Chicago to hear valuable insight and best practices from the expert speaking faculty. Learn more and register.

By James Cooper-Jones, CEO of CropLogic

I am travelling between CropLogic’s operations in Oregon and Washington State on the I-84 and a 1978 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am Special Edition appears in my rear-view mirror. Black in colour it is unmistakable with its gold firebird on the bonnet and iconic T-top roof. It’s as though it has just driven off the set of Smokey and the Bandit, and I half expect to see Burt Reynolds at the wheel.

In 1978 the American Muscle car, the Firebird, with the Ford Mustang, and Chevrolet Camaro, were the kings of the road. Their powerful engines quickly turned litres of gasoline into raw, adrenaline-pumping power. They were the envy of the neighbourhood, kings of the mountain. More efficient Japanese and European imports were no threat. Everyone knew that that hero of the car show was the American muscle car.

But this landscape changed. In the 1970’s gasoline was at its cheapest for many years, but this price more than doubled in the following decades.¹ A series of disasters and crises also brought environmental concerns front of mind for many consumers. This increase in the cost of inputs, such as gasoline, and an increasing environment awareness, changed consumer habits. This spelled the end of the era of the American muscle car as the dominant species on the road. In 1966 Ford sold 607,500 Ford Mustangs. In 2009 that number was 66,700.² In 1983 Toyota sold 52,621 Camrys. In 2009 that number has increased to 356,824.³ It was the smart investor who saw these trends in 1983 and backed the car manufacturers that were investing in more efficient engine technology.

As the Firebird flicks on its indicator, revs and moves into the left lane in preparation to pass me, my mind turns to a recent conversation with my agronomists in Mildura, Australia. Mildura, located at the juncture of three Australian states – New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia – is also located within the Murray-Darling basin, one of Australia’s largest irrigation areas.⁴ During a crippling drought, the cost of irrigation water has more than doubled in the past 12 months in some Murray-Darling regions. There also is less water to go around as the Federal Australian Government, bowing to environmental pressures from an increasingly environmentally conscious electorate, has reclaimed significant amounts of irrigation water for environmental reasons.⁵

Growers hope that this increase in cost of inputs will translate to better prices for their produce. I’m sympathetic, but with an increasingly environmentally conscious global consumer that has a hunger for traceability and how their food is grown, I’m unfortunately not optimistic. Did muscle car manufacturing executives have similar aspirations that consumers would absorb increasing gasoline prices? My mind turns to how these pressures of high costs of inputs, such as water and changes in consumer practices, will affect farming methods. Will growers be able to afford to continue the less efficient growing methods of the past? As consumers get an ever-clearer window into how their food is grown, will they increasingly “vote with their feet” and buy food that uses less inputs and is kinder to the environment?

It makes me think about what role precision agriculture and agricultural technology have to play in this. The words “you can’t manage what you don’t know and you can’t know what you don’t measure” ring in my ears. It reminds me that data is the key to any process of efficiency. With data, trends can be identified and addressed. Accurate application of inputs such as water, fertilizer, and pesticides can be applied, and the impacts on growing patterns can be monitored and recorded. Value can be even added when things go wrong through a process of lessons learned when accurate data is recorded. It suggests to me that data collecting agricultural technologies such as sensors and aerial imagery, which have the ability to record data remotely, objectively, and in real time, are likely to play a key role in cropping efficiencies in the future.

As the Firebird moves from my rear-view mirror across to my left side mirror and begins to pass me with ease I wonder, ‘if technology has so much to offer, and as many research institutes suggest, could add billions to agriculture industries around the world, what are the keys to its adoption by growers?’ I remember reading the following from a CSIRO report: “If technology remains isolated from knowledge of agriculture and an understanding of the actual on-farm realities and business problems, then instead of contributing solutions it will remain on the shelf or be of interest only to niche hobbyists.”⁶

This seems consistent with what my agronomist in the Tri-Cities, Washington State tell me. The Tri-Cities is located at the juncture of three significant rivers in the Pacific NorthWest — the Yakima, Columbia, and Snake Rivers. Known as the Columbia Basin, this region has some of the best soils and growing yields per acre in the world. Some of CropLogic’s agronomists have been servicing this region for 30 years and have a sound “knowledge of agriculture” and I have found them never shy of vocalising their “understanding of the actual on-farm realities”. This has been to CropLogic’s technologies’ benefit, and a big part of its success.

The average age of growers in Australia and the U.S. is approximately between 55 and 60 years of age.⁷ And so although data is the key, this data needs to be interpretable and understandable to this target market – the grower. I reflect on what I once heard said, “For technology to work on the farm it needs to be complex enough to give you good and reliable data but simple enough to give the grower the answer they need at the click of a button.” This process of “ground trothing” — taking sound technology and combining it with practical “call a spade a spade”, “no bones about it” real-life growing knowledge has the effect of producing a product that is understandable to the grower and easily integrated into their farm plan.

It then makes me think that when compared to other technology industries, perhaps the key to agricultural technology adoption is not one of disruption and displacement, but of collaboration and integration.

As the Firebird now pulls away from me, I reflect on the dramatic change this piece of road must have been witness to over the past 40 years, from the age of the Firebird, to the age of the Camry, to now perhaps the age of the Tesla. I imagine the rugged Firebird would look with disdain at the prospect of its crown passing to the likes of the clean-living Tesla, but as a wise man once said “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future”,⁸ and there is no doubt there is a fundamental change accruing in the agricultural industry.

About CropLogic

CropLogic is an award-winning global agricultural technology company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). After launching its product into Washington State, USA in 2017, CropLogic is currently servicing a significant portion of horticultural growers in this region, with a market share as high as 30 percent in some crops. Following significant growth (2017-2018) in Washington State, in 2018, CropLogic expanded into the Idaho, Oregon, and Australian market. CropLogic offers growers of irrigated crops agronomy expertise and digital agricultural technology applications, including CropLogic realTime and CropLogic aerial imagery, based upon scientific research and delivered with cutting-edge technology – science, agronomy, and technology interwoven into an expert system for decision support. http://www.croplogic.com/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Cooper-Jones is the CEO of CropLogic Limited and has overseen and been involved in the launch of CropLogic’s suite of agricultural technologies and agronomy business in the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. Cooper-Jones is a passionate believer in the impact practical agricultural technology can have on the global cropping industry. Cooper-Jones also is a classic car tragic and is the proud owner of a 1965 MGB in British racing green, a ‘project car’ with his two teenage sons.

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DISCLAIMER: All views, data, opinions and declarations expressed are solely those of the author(s) and not of Global AgInvesting, GAI News, GAI Gazette, or parent company HighQuest Group.

^{1. https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-and-automobiles/average-gas-prices-through-history/↩}

^{2. https://www.cjponyparts.com/resources/mustang-sales-throughout-years↩}

^{3. http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/toyota/toyota-camry/↩}

^{4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray%E2%80%93Darling_basin↩}

^{5. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-09/increasing-water-market-making-farmers-think-twice/10474518↩}

^{6. https://blog.csiro.au/digital-agriculture-whats-all-the-fuss-about/↩}

^{7. https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/02/24/us-farmers-are-old-and-getting-much-older↩}

^{8. J.F. Kennedy↩}