- [Narrator] Digi-Key, Supplyframe and Amphenol RF
present, Farm Different.
A three-part series about people, technology
and the challenges of modern agriculture.
- Farmstead of the future.
What does that look like?
How did the farms need to kinda react in terms
of being future oriented?
- Green farm has this sense
that if we bring growers with technologists
they can work together to solve problems.
- [Narrator] In this episode, we visit emerging Prairies
Grand Farm in North Dakota.
A region of North America known for its fast farmland
and agricultural innovation.
Brian Carroll, director of operations at Grand Farm
shares with us, his vision for the future of farming.
- My role is to take the vision, the big, hairy
audacious goal that we set up
for the Grand Farm and translate that
in a set of objectives that we can measure
and achieve in a timely fashion.
- [Narrator] Grand Farm seeks to facilitate collaboration
between businesses and researches.
Ultimately working toward solutions for critical issues
that farmers face inspiring widespread adoption
across North America and the world.
Greg Tehven, executive director and co-founder
of Grand Farm, highlights the benefits
of a collaborative approach
that brings technology and growers together.
- At the end of the day, Grand Farm is
about improving the lives of our farmers and our growers.
These folks that work tirelessly to feed the world.
Some of the goals that we have is about efficiency.
It's about access to new technology.
It's the convergence of academia, large organizations
and early stage companies coming together
to solve problems that create efficiencies in agriculture
- [Narrator] Director of IOT Business Development
at Digi-Key electronics, Robbie Paul,
explains the company's approach
to working with systems integrators that offer new solutions
for agriculture.
- A lot of our supplier partners provide the hardware.
So, the sensors, the connectivity, the microcontrollers
we're well aware of who makes them, where they come from.
What we're seeing is that there are other entities.
We call them systems integrators
solution providers that bring together the hardware,
software, and services pieces specific to the farmer.
So, one of our goals in expanding our interaction
with agriculture is to work with systems integrators
and work with them to the end customer, which is the farmer.
- What we expect to happen over time is
that organizations become members and they work together
in a collaborative way in order to think
about the future and build technologies for it.
Our design is put the grower into the middle
of the innovation work with the technology companies
in order to identify ways
in which we can bring greater efficiency
into farming practices.
And we also can look at
how we take all these different variables
whether it's weather whether it's data
and allow and enabled the grower
to make real strong decisions based off a risk profile.
And so, we see data being used to serve that purpose
and we also see automation as being a means
to become more effective and efficient and farm.
- [Narrator] The the ultimate goal of Grand Farm
is to create a future farming prototype
by the year 2025.
Future methods of farming infused with new technologies
will address global issues like population growth
or food and labor shortages.
Kevin Biffert, an entrepreneur, grower
and Grand Farm landowner outlines an opportunity
for enhanced tracking and monitoring
of livestock in rural areas.
- There's not a lot of technology in the rural areas
for livestock,
so that's kinda the area that I'm most interested in.
Animals like cattle that are used
for dairy and milking and cheesing and stuff like that,
those animals are really kinda supported
by that equal system that's inside that barn.
I'm looking more at the ecosystem outside the barn
and outside the farmhouse
where those animals are roaming around
and could come into danger with other things
and also their health could fail
and you would need to know that
because they're out in the rural areas.
- [Narrator] President and CEO of Dakota Micro,
Charissa Rubey, illustrates the need
for solutions that seamlessly integrate
with existing equipment.
- Video is becoming more and more common
and everything from vehicles to tractors
and especially with the equipment getting so large.
When we first started farming
it was a four row corn planter.
Now, you get dozens of rows.
It's a big equipment you can't see behind you.
Our cameras now integrate
with all their third party monitors.
We have an adapter that plugs right into that monitor.
That's one of the things that we always are aware
of in the marketplace are what are the needs?
And what is the usefulness?
- [Narrator] By analyzing the journey that food takes
from the farm to retailers, Grand Farm has identified
four major things on which to focus their efforts,
visualization of data, autonomous systems,
farm infrastructure
and the farmstead of the future.
- The importance of internet connections
in IOT is really gonna be the bedrock
for how the farms of the future are designed.
And what we wanna be able to do is create the farmer
of the future, not just for South Fargo
or in North Dakota, but a farm in rural Montana
where those connectivity isn't in there.
Also perhaps in India and then eventually in the space.
So, what we wanna do is have all sets of technology
and connectivity here, and then allow that
to enable organizations to work on different solutions based
off the technology stack that's available for them.
- [Narrator] The intersection of new technologies
and modern farmers creates the need for new innovations
in how we train the farmers of the future.
- The lessons that growers and farmers can use
with all the sources of data are really
based off of how you can transform information
and make really strong data driven decisions.
So, we're living in the world of digital transformation
right now where information is now being accessed
in order to make really strong decisions.
And that's how I see the grower being the most
impacted based off these data streams.
- [Narrator] Precision farming is expected
to reach at 32% market share by 2025
due to the rising need for agriculture technologies
new innovations in both equipment
and education will fuel this growth.
- I think the unique element Digi-Key brings to our region
and makers around the world is world-class products
in an affordable way quickly.
Speed matters in innovation and that ability
of an entrepreneur to put together a series of parts,
bring that potential prototype to a farmer
and say, could this potentially work for you?
Is critical.
- Farming technologies that increase efficiency
and crop yield are just one example of how technology
is redefining what it means to grow
and harvest food in today's connected world.
To farm better, we must farm different.
In our next episode, we discuss the future
of agriculture with several startups from
around the world on the cutting edge
of new innovations that will define the next generation
of farming.