FarmBit‪s‬ Nebraska Extension Digital Agriculture

If rural connectivity challenges are going to be solved, private sector investment and innovation will be necessary. Dr. Ranveer Chandra, the Chief Scientist of Microsoft Azure Global and Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research, joins the FarmBits Podcast to discuss Microsoft's investment in enabling data connectivity and interoperability in agriculture. Ranveer initiated the FarmBeats project at Microsoft Research which has recently led to the launch of Azure FarmBeats, which is a cloud platform enabling data-driven insights in agricultural applications. The FarmBeats project has also resulted in innovative approaches for establishing broadband connectivity on farms, such as using vacant TV white spaces to facilitate data transfer in rural areas. In this episode, Ranveer covers everything from the development of this TV white space technology, to emerging technologies in the developing world, to how value can be extracted from data once it is consolidated and made available. While Microsoft is not a traditional player in the agricultural industry, the data pipelines and enabling technology they provide have significant potential to enhance agriculture alongside the expertise of experienced agricultural professionals.

"For growers, it would be more about thinking, 'Hey, I know a lot about the farm, which are the parts if I had this additional data that I could do better?'" - Ranveer Chandra, Ph.D.

FarmBeats Information:
FarmBeats Website: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/farmbeats-iot-agriculture/
Azure FarmBeats: https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/campaign/azure-farmbeats/
GatesNotes Wi-Fi Chip Blog: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/FarmBeats
White Space Deployment in Africa: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/main-5.pdf
Economist Article: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2016/09/17/tv-dinners
USDA Using FarmBeats: https://news.microsoft.com/features/feed-the-world-how-the-usda-is-using-data-and-ai-to-address-a-critical-need/

Ranveer Chandra's Info:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranveer-chandra-79bb9b/
Bio: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/ranveer/

FarmBits Team Contact Info:
E-Mail: farmbits@unl.edu
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEDigitalAg
Samantha's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamanthaTeten
Jackson's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jstansell87

Opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are solely their own, and do not reflect the views of Nebraska Extension or the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

It's widely known that rural connectivity is a major problem for rural residents and for the progression of digital agriculture technologies. But how big of an issue is it? Keenan McRoberts, Ph.D., Vice President of Science and Program Strategy for the United Soybean Board joins this episode of the FarmBits podcast to discuss the outcomes of a 2018 study titled "Rural Broadband and the American Farmer: Connectivity Challenges Limit Agriculture's Economic Impact and Sustainability." As Keenan will discuss in this episode, the United Soybean Board views their investment in this study and the rural broadband initiative in general as catalytic in nature. The information provided in this study and through ongoing investments by the United Soybean Board are intended to enable better decision making, public-private partnerships, and effective investments in rural connectivity. There is still much to be done to achieve the connected future that many in the agricultural industry believe is possible and the United Soybean Board is committed to playing a significant role in building that connected future.

Resources:
USB Rural Broadband Study: https://api.unitedsoybean.org/uploads/documents/58546-1-ruralbroadband-whitepages-final.pdf
USB Rural Broadband Information: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/media-center/issue-briefs/rural-broadband/
Rural Broadband in America: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/article/rural-broadband-in-america

United Soybean Board:
Website: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/UnitedSoy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnitedSoybeanBoard
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/UnitedSoybeanBoard
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/unitedsoybean/

Keenan's Contact Info:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keenan-mcroberts-a11611a/

FarmBits Team Contact Info:
E-Mail: farmbits@unl.edu
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEDigitalAg
Samantha's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamanthaTeten
Jackson's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jstansell87

Opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are solely their own, and do not reflect the views of Nebraska Extension or the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

Dr. John Fulton re-joins the FarmBits podcast to talk about a critical topic in agriculture right now: connectivity. This episode marks the beginning of a series focused on connectivity and is intended to make the case for why connectivity is so critical to the future of agriculture, and specifically digital agriculture. Many people who live in rural areas, and in some cases even urban or suburban geographies, experience the frustrations of unreliable, slow, or even non-existent internet connections. For farmers living in these areas who are increasingly presented with opportunities to enhance their operations through digital technologies, lack of internet connectivity can be a serious limitation to their adoption of these technologies and improvements to their operations. Even for farmers who are not actively exploring adopting digital technologies, lack of connectivity can also limit their access to important information like weather forecasts or University recommendations that can contribute significantly to their decision making. Dr. Fulton provides a fantastic overview of the landscape of connectivity, how our current state of connectivity impacts agriculture and digital technologies, and how connectivity challenges may best be solved for rural stakeholders built on his own experiences and a breadth of research.

"They [the FCC] just did a report where they went through and said well what is the value, for example, if we could tomorrow just turn on and everyone has access in rural America to the internet - wireless connectivity - what would that mean to the ag economy? . . . We would instantly see a 3% increase in corn production in the U.S." - Dr. John Fulton

Resources:
FCC Broadband Penetration Report: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-368773A1.pdf
FCC Bridging the Digital Divide: https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/fcc-initiatives/bridging-digital-divide-all-americans

Ohio State Digital Ag:
https://digitalag.osu.edu/home
https://digitalag.osu.edu/2020fielddemos
2020 eFields Report: https://issuu.com/efields/docs/efields_2020_final_singles

John's Contact Info:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-fulton-0665043/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fultojp
OSU Website: https://fabe.osu.edu/our-people/john-fulton

FarmBits Team Contact Info:
E-Mail: farmbits@unl.edu
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEDigitalAg
Samantha's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamanthaTeten
Jackson's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jstansell87

Opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are solely their own, and do not reflect the views of Nebraska Extension or the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

In the first mini-episode of the FarmBits podcast, Dr. John Fulton of the Ohio State University shares about the Ag Data Coalition, a non-profit consortium of public and private organizations seeking to give farmers more control over their data. The platform and resources provided by the Ag Data Coalition are giving farmers the power to digitize their farm and obtain the greatest value from an increasingly important resource: ag data.

Ag Data Coalition Info:
Website: http://agdatacoalition.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AgDataCoalition
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/agricultural-data-coalition/

John's Contact Info:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-fulton-0665043/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fultojp
OSU Website: https://fabe.osu.edu/our-people/john-fulton

FarmBits Team Contact Info:
E-Mail: farmbits@unl.edu
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEDigitalAg
Samantha's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamanthaTeten
Jackson's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jstansell87

Opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are solely their own, and do not reflect the views of Nebraska Extension or the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

In modern agriculture, managing your farm means selecting and managing your machinery well. But how do you make effective decisions about what machinery to use, when to replace machinery, and whether or not your machinery is making a positive impact on your bottom line? Sam Schwab, Implementation Specialist with CropZilla Software, Inc., joins this episode of the FarmBits podcast to discuss how CropZilla is revealing the hidden influence machinery and other operational components and decisions have on a farm's bottom line. CropZilla was born out of a farmer's need to understand his operation past the level of complexity enabled by typical spreadsheet software. The goal of software created by CropZilla - including the enterprise software for desktop usage and CropZilla Machine Analytics app - is to provide farmers easy to use, flexible solutions that enable them to measure the impact of their operations and machinery decisions. As Sam mentions in this episode, it is critical to get all costs on a farm into the units of dollars per acre so that they can be effectively compared versus income and other costs measured in those units. Without an accurate measurement of the costs or benefits of all farm operations and decisions in those units, farm profitability can never be fully captured, or manipulated for maximum benefit.

"Making these costs visible, because farmers don't really know. An extra fungicide pass might gsay itll get youy, an extra five bushel an acre or something like that, but maybe they're not taking into acount what you're using to apply it with or your costs associated with putting it on, because you have to pay for the machine, equipment, fuel, labor, all of those things.They might just say well this is X number of dollars per acre and you'll make this much more, but they're not taking into account all those other things. So making these costs visible is the first step in being able to make decisions with them."

"A lot of farmers have their fertilizer, their seed, all that down to literally the penny per unit on that. So trying to get a handle on your equipment costs is a big part of that. . . . New equipment isn't always more expensive, because like I mentioned you can get it back with yield increases, timeliness increases."

CropZilla Contact Information:
Website:: https://cropzilla.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CropZilla_Inc
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cropzillainc/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cropzilla-software/

FarmBits Team Contact Info:
E-Mail: farmbits@unl.edu
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NEDigitalAg
Samantha's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamanthaTeten
Jackson's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jstansell87

Opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are solely their own, and do not reflect the views of Nebraska Extension or the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

The agricultural supply chain, including the grain industry, is an incredibly complex system that - as COVID-19 exposed to many individuals for the first time - is also incredibly fragile. Many of the information systems in place for this supply chain and industry are archaic, requiring physical transfers of information that limit the efficiency of the system by wasting time and money. Ryan Raguse, President and Co-Founder of Bushel, joins the FarmBits podcast for this episode to explain the challenges faced by the ag supply chain and how Bushel is addressing those challenges from a digital perspective to push the industry into a digitized, value-added future. As Ryan will explain, digitization of the agricultural supply chain - starting with the grain industry - is critical to unlocking the potential of consumer-driven value-added opportunities for farmers including carbon credits, sustainability bonuses, health-based marketing, and more. These opportunities may be the next great frontier in the agricultural supply chain, akin to the first time that railroads and grain elevators offered the opportunity for international grain markets. This episode is a great opportunity to learn more about the agricultural supply chain and is a great example of how technology isn't just a way of doing things more efficiently, but it's a way of opening doors to new possibilities yet to be realized.

"The more important question is how can we set the system up . . . I don't know what consumers are going to ask for in 10 years, nobody really does. And how do you set up a future proof system so that no matter what the whims of a consumer might be in 10 years from now we can react to that without having to retool the whole system?. . .The way you do that is through a scalable digital infrastructure." - Ryan Raguse, President and Co-Founder of Bushel

"As a farmer, I have to do proof of yield reports. And that might involve me calling the elevator and getting an assembly sheet or I literally drop off a shoebox of scale tickets . . . and now we're moving data with gasoline by driving paper from one place to another, it makes no sense. . . .We are wasting the farmer's time, the elevator's time, the insurance company's time so why don't we just connect these pipes up on the internet and permission them appropriately and then pass them off, and we'll save everybody in the supply chain time." - Ryan Raguse, President and Co-Founder of Bushel

Bushel Contact Information:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvLo1W-1fgxW-OxlbV8X8qg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bushel-ag/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bushelpowered
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/getbushel/

Ryan's Contact Information:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanraguse/

FarmBits Team Contact Info:
E-Mail: farmbits@unl.edu
Twitter: @NEDigitalAg
Samantha's Twitter: @SamanthaTeten
Jackson's Twitter: @jstansell87

Opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are solely their own, and do not reflect the views of Nebraska Extension or the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.