Buyer’s Remorse: Gap between Ag Data Market and What’s Needed in Rows?

The shine of a new digital product often dulls quickly in the rows, and many farmers believe there is a gap between what is offered in the ag data market and what is needed in the rows.

By Chris Bennett

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February 24, 2021 08:08 AM

“Agriculture doesn’t have an innovation problem,” says Mississippi producer Chad Swindoll, “It has an implementation problem.”

Digital information is a realm of genuine opportunity for agriculture, but the shine of a new digital product in a storefront window often dulls quickly in the rows. Boiled down, many growers believe there is a gap between what is offered in the ag data market and what is needed in the rows.

The basic data framework is repeated across the agriculture industry: A given company builds software, advertises, and sells the product on a subscription, fee, or standard one-time transaction. But for the grower at the tail-end of the chain, the promises sometimes are paralleled by pitfalls. “Farmers are bombarded with all kinds of new software products,” Swindoll describes, “but farmers in the real world are underwhelmed with the actual results—and underwhelmed is an understatement. Using information in an agricultural setting is not purely transactional in nature. I believe that is the root issue we are overlooking as an industry. When the focus is on a tool, rather than a result, something is out of kilter.”

When the Deal is Done

Swindoll, 32, hails from the heart of the Mississippi Delta, and the small farmer grows corn and cotton, just off Highway 49 in Tallahatchie County, between the tiny towns of Sumner and Tutwiler. Additionally, Swindoll is the owner of J19 Agriculture , an independent consulting firm. Prior to J19, he worked for several years as a field representative for a leading precision ag tech company, and encountered a consistent request from growers: “Can you help me with my data?”

“I turned down requests all the time,” he says, “never wanting to step into a conflict of interest, but I met so many different types of farmers, and many of them had the same problem. They had been told or heard that data is useful, but just didn’t know how or where to start. The demand seemed to be real, and it morphed into J19 Agriculture.”

Most ag data revenue models are built around products, and not customer success, Swindoll contends, an imbalance ultimately detrimental to the vast majority of farmers. The paradigm needs change, he emphasizes, and a swing toward farmer success. “It’s like being in a store. You go in and buy a product and you pay the company; the deal is done. The problem for a farmer is not about a lack of tools because there is great software available. Instead, the problem is finding someone with a financial incentive to make the tools work. Using ag information is a system; it is a process. Not one and done.”

“I’m compensated by my clients for time only. I don’t sell software, but instead help them use what they have. Sure, I’ll recommend a product if I’m asked, but I’m only paid for my advice. In this way, my success is linked closely to client success.”

Wrestling Data

Roughly 40 minutes southeast of Swindoll, Adron Belk grows corn, rice and soybeans in Bolivar County, and he places data on a high pedestal. Belk gleans university data for management help, but is resolute in obtaining data directly off his own ground. For each of the past five years, Belk has placed 50%-75% of his farmland in various strip trials, with a vast array of comparisons stretched across 100-plus fields, including variety, fertilizer difference and placement, fungicide, irrigation, inoculant, and significantly more variables.

Belk sees a disconnect between data products and farmer practice. “There’s some great technology out there, but truly finding out how to use it right is a problem. I’ve got more tech than I can understand, and I’m too stretched to figure it all out. Somebody has to have a vested interest in data collection succeeding on my ground, and in my opinion, that’s where farming has a big hole.”

Data collection is an all-or-nothing affair for Belk, and necessitates precise tracking through harvest, otherwise all efforts are wasted. From machinery to software, Belk generally runs three major company platforms, and the interchange can be a major tangle. “Crossing boundaries is no simple order, and that’s another obvious gap. All three companies help me with their products, but the interchange is a different matter,” he describes.

(For more on Belk’s operation, see Young Farmer’s Giant Strip Trials Reveal Corn, Soybean Truth)

“From planting forward, Chad Swindoll analyzes everything for me and makes sure I’m good to go. By the time our combines roll into a field, we’ve got as much human error removed as possible. Chad doesn’t try to sell me anything, but instead, he looks at all my data and listens to what I need. I’m like a lot of guys that are pulled too thin and don’t have time to wade through all these data programs that seem to come out every six months or so: At end of day, I want to farm, and not wrestle data. Most farmers are just like me, and we don’t want to sit at a computer and fool with data.”

The Stampede

Finding out which software package or data tool works best on a given farm can be a tough task, particularly when considering the options available. Farmers have watched a dizzying array of digital products enter the market, and in many cases the volume has birthed confusion, instead of clarity. As a partial explanation, Swindoll points to the commodity price peaks from a decade past: “So much venture capital was injected into ag, specifically on the digital side, over the last 10 years and some of that is attributable to a model based on a period of high grain prices.”

“The assumption was that high margins in row crops were here to stay, but now with the margins long gone, what happens to a laundry list of products? Something’s gotta give somewhere. The investment onslaught in recent years into ag tech was based on a market potential that is unrealistic in the long term. The cream will rise to the top and the companies that have real business models involving software and services will survive, the others will get gobbled up by larger companies or fade out of existence. Sadly, many of the reputable companies that have been in the business for a long time with positive track records suffer along with the entire ag tech segment when farmers have limited success or frustrations when trying to get started.”

Further, the space between software developer and farmer is often a distant stretch, according to Swindoll. “There are many well-meaning people in the ag industry that want to build and sell innovative products that help make farmers’ lives easier and more productive. However, when you get down to it, many of the people actually building the products are not farmers themselves and have a limited ability to empathize with the end user.”

Overpromised and under-delivered is a recipe to create a gun-shy farmer. Mark Gable grows corn and soybeans in Coahoma County, just south of Clarksdale in northwest Mississippi. At 43 years old, Gable is increasingly hesitant regarding digital tools: “Seems like there are many things you can buy, but nobody knows how to run them. Yes, the sales people can tell you how they work, but they can’t tell you how to implement them on your farm. In other words, some of the offerings just aren’t usable unless you’re really techy or put in a whole lot of effort, but so many guys don’t have that kind of time. To me, that’s a major data gap.”

Gable is admittedly gun-shy: “I’ve gotten burned several times, and lots of guys have because of how good some product looked at first. Instead, I found someone I could put confidence to get me where I need to be with data. Chad’s got a high reputation with people that know him. Other farmers are just like me: They want to quit messing with data and find somebody that provides help that doesn’t push the products.”

Depths of the Gar Hole

Agribusiness and farmers in general are still discovering what data information is worth, explains Swindoll. “In years past the attitude has been, ‘We know we need to do it, but aren’t sure how to charge for it. So we will bundle the service into the cost of some other product the farmer purchases as an encouragement to do business with us.’ I don’t disagree with that line of thinking, but the negative result is that the perceived value of ag information services has dwindled because of this mentality. Additionally, this model removes the direct financial incentive for the service provider to vest time into client success on the information side of things.”

Swindoll supports dialing back on advanced analytics, in favor of starting with the basics. “I can’t tell you how often I encounter clients that don’t have an up-to-date set of maps. Just having maps and being organized is the foundation for everything else more advanced. How do you go to variable rate without basic maps? Truth is, that’s where a lot of guys are. Farmers are looking for folks to listen to their needs.”

Before going down the ag data road, Swindoll urges farmers to find a firm measuring stick, start with simplicity, and seize on three “action” items. As a hypothetical example: One, certify planted acres at FSA using digital records. Two, variable rate seed on a given field. Three, pull up a digital report on demand. Simplicity is in big demand, Swindoll says, and the confidence provided by starting small provides a big psychological boost. “When I show a guy how the latest digital technology can really work on his fields, he begins to become accountable for his own success. I start by defining success with my clients, then work with them to build a framework to achieve it. We are looking for the shortest and simplest path to a ‘win.’ If a farmer is winning, he will continue investing his time and money. Seeing that lightbulb moment is very rewarding.”

There remains a segment of growers that adhere strictly to farm history to interpret what happens in the rows. For example, a fourth-generation producer looks across a particular field and tabulates the oral traditions of his forefathers, along with his own field experiences, and accounts for all the good and bad spots—therefore the case is closed. Summed from a slightly different angle: Knowledge of the gar hole locations sustained his family in the past, and therefore the knowledge is ample for his family in the future.

Swindoll dents the armor of the “I know my own ground,” attitude with legitimate questions. “I’m going to ask challenging things, but without disrespect. There is a world of difference between knowing something is bad, and knowing precisely how bad it is. Question: What is the exact impact of a gar hole? You can’t force against a, ‘We’ve always done it this way mentality,’ but you can sure ask questions that make people think critically. I feel like my main job as an independent advisor to farmers and agribusiness is one thing—ask good questions to provoke critical thinking.”

Can’t Get Enough

Trey Brower grows corn, cotton, soybeans and sweet potatoes in northcentral Mississippi’s Calhoun County. Brower, 36, is new to ag data analysis and 2020 is his first year to “get serious.” The biggest data issues for Brower are implementation and compatibility. “That’s a big gap to me and it’s intimidating. When you pay for something and it doesn’t work right, or you can’t get to it because of your hectic schedule, you get frustrated pretty fast. I needed help across my equipment and it’s easy to get frustrated.”

Brower’s initial reason to enlist Swindoll was basic organization. “I needed to get going with record keeping from fertility to planting to applied yield products. I know my good areas and bad areas of each field, but I want to know the ‘why’ of what I can’t see. I want to nail down exactly ‘why’ and develop mapping data. Data and knowledge—that’s a great thing in farming and I can’t get enough.”

One of the most beneficial data actions a farmer can implement out of the gate is the organization of field records. Simply, it is a small investment with a big return. However, the neglect of field records is a consistent behavior observed by Swindoll. One of his go-to, favorite questions to ask a grower: “Can you tell me what you planted on this field on this day—population and variety?” With few exceptions, he gets muddied answers. “It’s 2021, and many guys don’t know the real numbers. The information is being held captive on a computer in a tractor sitting on a farm lot somewhere. Nobody wants to say it, but we’ve got producers that don’t know how to effectively use yield monitors because they haven’t been taught or taken the time to learn.”

How to Build a Watch

Despite the hitches, the road ahead for digital agriculture data is wide open, paved with many products that perform as advertised, Swindoll emphasizes. “Things will continue to get cheaper and improvements in cellular capability will take data from field to office at even more incredible speeds. There are great products out there that will genuinely save you time. I never tell a guy that a product will save him money or add bushels. I always bank on time saved because time is the means to get to all the rest. Operational efficiencies are also easier to point to as something that made a significant financial impact. Agronomic questions are more complex and take more time to grow into on most farms.”

No matter the future of agriculture data, a human touch will always be needed to weave the patchwork together. “Artificial intelligence is just that—artificial,” Swindoll adds. “People don’t want to get a long chain of data or long emails; they want to know three things they can act on right now and why. Folks want insights, not data. It’s like the old saying: ‘Don’t tell me how to build a watch, just tell me what time it is.’ It’s important for the person advising in the agricultural information sector to be knowledgeable of all aspects of farming, not just how to use a computer or a sophisticated software. General agronomy knowledge and business know-how are two of the most needed skills in this area of ag.”

Case in point: Adron Belk. “At the end of the day, I want to farm, not fool with data,” Belk explains. “Most farmers are just like me. I needed a guy that was independent, wasn’t trying to sell, and that I could trust with top character—that’s Chad. I’m not telling people how to run their farms in any way, but I know I needed someone that works directly off my success.”

Buyer’s Remorse

Paring down digital agriculture data, what separates the latest-and-greatest from the real McCoy? Echoing Belk, Swindoll points to agriculture data models built upon customer success. “If you work in ag tech industry, farmer success is foundational.”

Swindoll frequently receives two blunt questions from farmers. The first: “I use brand X software. It is good?” The second: “What should I buy?”

His answer requires a peek over the near horizon. “I tell guys, ‘If it works for you, then keep using it, but you must have an exit strategy.’ Companies continue to get bought and sold at a fast pace, but if you ask almost anybody in farming, ‘Will ag data will be more or less important in 10 years?’ they’ll answer, ‘More,’ regardless of their overall opinion on data. Therefore, we have to be much more methodical on who we partner with to handle data.”

In the near future, more companies will offer product performance pricing models and guarantee pricing, both of which are heavily dependent on accurate field level information, he adds. “It is in the farmer’s best interest to take a few steps and view information as another piece of their operation. As business owners we don’t have to be experts at everything, but we need to generally understand each segment. Seed, chemical, fertilizer, equipment—add information to that list if you are a farmer and keep yourself up to date.”

“I’m not bashing the digital agriculture industry because I’m in the digital agriculture industry. I’m painting a truthful picture of the current landscape because I see the frustrations my fellow farmers deal with every day,” Swindoll concludes. “Again, so many guys are underwhelmed by the results of ag data, but that doesn’t have to continue. There’s so much opportunity waiting, but it must be done right.”