Read Full Transcript
[00:00:08] Mike Howell:
The Dirt with me, Mike Howell, an eKonomics podKast where I present the down and dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by ekonomics.com, farming’s go-to informational resource. I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research, news, and issues, helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
[00:00:39] Mike Howell:
Well, hello again, listeners. Welcome back to The Dirt. We’ve got a special guest with us today. We’ve got Ben Graham here. Ben, welcome to The Dirt.
[00:00:46] Ben Graham:
Well, thanks, Mike. It’s good to be here, that’s for sure.
[00:00:49] Mike Howell:
Ben and I have known each other for about 15 years now. He was one of the first people I met when I started working with Agrium back in the day and now, Nutrien. Ben, if you will, introduce yourself to our listeners and let them know what you do.
[00:01:00] Ben Graham:
Thanks, Mike. It’s been a pleasure. We’ve had some good times. I’m Ben Graham. I’m the president of AdFarm. AdFarm is one of North America’s leading agriculturally-focused marketing communications agency. I’ve been around for a long time. The company’s been around for 40 years. I think I’m pushing 28 or 29 years. I started with the company as a lowly farm gnome guy, and learned the trade, and have evolved from there. I started with the company in 1998, I believe. I had hair then, which was an added bonus. I started out doing some account management work, making sure we developed some really good messages for farmers. I was born and raised on a family farm where we had some hogs, some cattle, and a bunch of grain. I was kicked off the farm because there was no future in agriculture, which back in the ’80s, was probably pretty true. But I think rumor has it, agriculture’s still here today, and I wanted to work in the business so I was lucky enough to join AdFarm. It’s been a hell of a ride, Mike.
[00:01:58] Mike Howell:
Yes, it has, Ben. And back in those days, I had hair as well. I don’t know if it’s the agriculture industry that makes it go away or what, but we have that in common. Ben, we wanted to spend a little time today talking about Canadian agriculture, and a lot of people, when they think about Canadian agriculture, they naturally think about canola, but Canadian agriculture is so much more. And you just mentioned a little bit more in your introduction. You talked about the animal agriculture and the grain that was on your farm there growing up, but talk a little bit about the diversity in Canadian agriculture.
[00:02:26] Ben Graham:
Mike, it’s really underestimated, the diversity that exists in Canadian agriculture today. There’s over 100 different crop types that can be grown in Canada. Now, many of those are in greenhouse because of course crops don’t grow really well in Canada in January, but it’s amazing when you look at that kind of hundred threshold of products and goods that can be produced in the country. I travel all over the world with agriculture, and Canada does have some challenges because of the seasonality of the weather, but there’s more than 12 really important key large-acre field crops that are grown. The greenhouse business is moving really fast, especially as people want that 100-acre diet. It’s tough though to do oranges in Canada. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a greenhouse or not.
[00:03:09] Ben Graham:
The diversity that’s gone on in the livestock side, we have a strong poultry business, strong pork business in Canada. The beef industry is one of the largest in the world. Agriculture is really diverse, and it’s becoming more diverse because it’s not just about primary agriculture. It’s about all the things that now are needed to support modern agriculture, the amount of technology needed, the expertise, the industries that are popping up to serve all the data that’s coming out of agriculture. Ag is probably in its most exciting point that it’s ever been in the last 150 years.
[00:03:40] Mike Howell:
Yeah, Ben, things are definitely changing. When I was growing up, every county in the state had a county extension agent, and most of them had an assistant county agent, and it wasn’t anything to be working out in the field, and the county agent pull up and jump right in there and go to working with you and tell you the latest and greatest research that was going on. We just don’t have that anymore. You’re lucky if you have a county agent that’s covering three or four counties now. You have to go to them to get the information or check your email and see what they’re sending out. Things have definitely changed. I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of changes in the way that we deliver information to producers. Talk a little bit about how things have changed over the course of your career.
[00:04:16] Ben Graham:
Well, it’s amazing. I’ve spent my whole life in agriculture and I watch what has happened. When I started, your core things were traditional media. There was a little bit of TV, a lot of radio, a ton of newspapers, didn’t matter what form it was in. In Canada, there was three or four key agricultural newspapers or magazines at the time. That’s evolved with the digital landscape. You looked at billboards, and some of those things, direct mail were all really important in delivering messages to farmers in any of the agricultural channels. It’s really unique because most industries got to leave where they were. People Magazine. Let’s pick on People Magazine because everyone pretty much knows People Magazine. Their distribution was just a magazine. And then, they got to build a website, and all of a sudden, now, they print a very small percentage of actual physical hard copy magazines as they did back in the day where we’ve had the challenge because we didn’t get to abandon anything.
[00:05:15] Ben Graham:
We’ll work on campaigns today that still have direct mail in them because it’s a tool that is reviving itself in this new day and age. We still have to do print magazines because there’s a big chunk of farmers and growers that still value the information they find in those. Then, you still have to do radio because radio’s still a great resource for getting to a local rural market, and billboards are still there. They didn’t go away. In fact, they’ve become more modernized with digital billboards. You look at all those channels that you used to use, none of them disappeared. We’re one of the few industries where a channel didn’t just leave. It didn’t just cease to exist where there was a printed magazine that just all of a sudden, was 100% online. We didn’t have that happen anywhere.
[00:05:59] Ben Graham:
In fact, we just added stuff. We added podcasts, and blogs, and websites, and all these things now that are valuable tools for farmers to gain information. The only one, Mike, that’s probably close to being gone is just what you said. The extension expert agronomist that was government-owned, county-owned, they’re pretty much gone. That’s one of the only things that have kind of gone the way of the dinosaur when it comes to information transfer and agriculture.
[00:06:25] Mike Howell:
Ben, you mentioned TV, and the way we get our information on the television has changed a little bit. I remember growing up, my dad had to be home for lunch every day because at the noon report, there was always the farm market report. It was a two or three-minute segment, but that was about the only way you were going to get the farm markets. You had to be there during that segment to find out what commodity prices were doing, and he had to be there to see what was going on. If he missed it, he was in a bad mood the rest of the day. You had to catch that, and right after that, was the weather. That was a very important time. Ben, things have definitely changed. We get the information on our phones now. We can get all this information just instantaneously. And I’ve heard a lot of people say, “We may have too much access to information.” What do you think about that? Can we get this information too quickly?
[00:07:07] Ben Graham:
You’re 100% right, Mike. And you act too quickly in a lot of cases or you react instead of sitting and processing. I think there’s a lot of positives to getting that information fast too, but there’s a lot of negatives as well because depending on how you’re processing all that information, it can make you make decisions that probably aren’t necessarily the best long-term decisions because of a snapshot in time. The amount of information that a farmer, or grower, or producer has access to, look at their ability to consume. When it comes to production agriculture, automation has created more ability to… Free time isn’t right because farmers don’t consider it free time. But if I’m driving a planter or a seeder around a field with auto steer and I’m seeding 7,000 acres or 2,000 acres or whatever the number is, I’m a captive audience in that cab, and I’m going to fill it with something that now, I can put on my phone, right?
[00:08:03] Ben Graham:
I’m going to watch YouTube. I’m going to listen to those reports we talked about. I’m going to see what’s going on with world politics and trade. And all that information, if not handled properly, can lead you down a path that may not be the most positive. And it’s truly amazing because what other industry could potentially sit in a combine or a harvester cab, in a tractor or planter cab baling hay that could literally be sitting there having access to continuous flow of information for 14 to 18 hours a day? It’s amazing when you think about it that way.
[00:08:33] Mike Howell:
It hasn’t been that long ago that even if we’d have had the technology to have that on our phone out in the field, we couldn’t have processed it in the field anyway because we had open station tractors and couldn’t have seen it or heard it either way. But the technology has just grown so rapidly. The auto-steer technology, that was just a dream when I first started on a tractor. I remember the first field that I was told to go cultivate. We had an old massive Ferguson tractor, and you could turn the steering wheel around and a half before it would turn the wheels on the tractor. So, can’t imagine using guidance systems on something like that. It’s just amazing how this equipment can go sub-inch accuracy today.
[00:09:07] Ben Graham:
Well, and in that short a time too, Mike, because we probably had the same Massey tractor because ours was the same way. Between the dirt between your teeth and the ability of that tractor to do what it was supposed to do, and now, where we’re at with technology on farm… And it’s not just in grain farming, it’s automation, and dairy, and beef, and the amount of technology that’s there, it is truly mind-blowing when you look what’s going on in the business of agriculture today. If you looked at the last 15 years only, the quantum leap that you could go from zero adoption on an auto-drive technology, and then, have almost 100% adoption within five years is unbelievable. And the cost was not cheap. Wasn’t like it was a $5 add-on to your equipment or a new purchase. It was a substantial investment, but everyone didn’t even blink. They just did it.
[00:09:55] Mike Howell:
On the other side of that, Ben, things like aerial imaging, that’s been around for a while, and that’s just never really taken off. Everybody wants to use it, and there’s still companies out there that’s promoting it and trying to make it work, but it’s just never really got its teeth sunk in. What makes one technology really take off and 100% adoption and one technology just never can quite take hold?
[00:10:15] Ben Graham:
I think there’s a couple things, Mike. When we look at it over time, number one is what does it mean for the farmer and the producer? Is there a convenience factor, a time-saving, a productivity enhancement? What are the true features and benefits of it? What does it do to autonomy of an operation? Because we got to remember we have a whole bunch of proud farmers in North America. I don’t like giving my data away, and there was all these worries that were going to come with this new technology, but really, it boils down to a couple things. Can I understand it? Number one, do I understand how this technology’s going to work? Number two, how is it going to make my personal life better? And number three, how is it going to make my operation better? And if you can answer, if it solves a problem in one of those categories, opportunity for adoption is high.
[00:11:07] Ben Graham:
There’s other elements. There’s economic factors, what’s the cost, those things, but it’s really driven by those things. What is it going to mean to me and what’s it going to mean to my operation? And if you can check those boxes as a positive, adoption will be really high. Even when you look at new crops, you talked about canola and Canada. When it came to the market, growers are like, “Oh my God, how am I going to do this? Because I don’t know how to grow this tiny little seed. And what’s the market going to be and is it going to handle drought?”
[00:11:34] Ben Graham:
And all those checkbox were checked. And number one is for me personally as a farmer, didn’t really take any more work. And number two is the economic benefit and the enhancement to my operation was massive because I had a cash crop, and that was a big deal in agriculture in Canada, specifically in the ’80s. It was a true innovation, and those are things that I believe that you have to solve to make sure that new technology will get adopted fast in agriculture because it’s moving, let me tell you.
[00:12:03] Mike Howell:
Ben, I look around at all the new equipment that’s coming out, and there’s so much technology on this equipment. And then, you go out in the farm and visit with some of these farmers, and they’ve got it on the tractor, they’ve got it on the planter, they’ve got it on their harvesters, but do they really use it? How many of them actually know how to take advantage of all the technology that’s on that equipment? In my experience, very few of them take advantage of 90% of the technology that they’re actually paying for. Where are we missing the boat there? How can we get these farmers to better understand what they’re actually paying for and get them to utilize this investment that they’re paying for?
[00:12:35] Ben Graham:
Well, again, it comes back to those fundamental principles. Do I understand it and know how to use it? Is it easy for me to personally interact with? I think that’s part of the challenge depending on the age on farm. We know that the younger generation is a little more apt to figure out the technology because a lot of that technology has some value and some of it doesn’t. When we look at that, if you’re not going to use variable rate technology on a planter or a seeder, probably didn’t need to buy it. But the farmer mentality is, well, maybe somebody else will in my operation. Hopefully, my son or daughter, they’ll figure out how to use that, and that’ll be a value.
[00:13:08] Ben Graham:
But back to that question that you had about the technologies that didn’t take like your aerial imaging. I look at that, the premise wasn’t quite right. When it was launched, it was going to make our poor-producing land better. That was kind of that variable rate imaging that high-tech mapping was all going to help us produce more on our farm by enhancing our lower-producing land. Well, the reality is we found out finally that that isn’t how it worked. The opportunity was making our best land produce more, not our crappy land producing more. And I think as people come to those type of rationalizations, technology will take on.
[00:13:43] Ben Graham:
But as we adopt that new stuff, I think people are worried about leaving out. And I think that the worry is valid because as AI and automation creeps further and further into agriculture, I’m not going to need to know how to run all that technology. There’s going to be interfaces and AI technology that’s going to do it all for me. I’m going to just sit there and say, “Look, I would like you to take my four key data management tools that I have on my combine, and my planter, and my seeder, and my fertilizer spreader, and I want it all put together into making better recommendations for what crop I should grow and how I should treat that crop.” That’s going to solve a lot of those problems of that technology on farm that’s not being used today. I firmly believe that’s going to happen.
[00:14:25] Mike Howell:
In my role as an agronomist with Nutrien, I’m generating data, putting data together for farmers, and your role with AdFarm is to get this information and put it in a form that farmers can utilize, help get that information distributed. How can we both do a better job at supporting our rural communities, getting this information out in a better form so that farmers can utilize it better? What can we do differently?
[00:14:46] Ben Graham:
I think that’s a really good question, Mike. And I think if we all had a silver bullet, the world would be a better place. When I look at rural communities, there’s a couple things. There’s still the fabric of agriculture. They need to exist for a whole bunch of reasons for schooling, for interactions, social clubs, entertainment. Rural communities across North America are kind of founded on a couple principles. Number one is today, they have to have a good grocery store. You got to be able to feed your family. Whether you’re producing all the food that you can, you need to have a good grocery store. You also need to have a really good hospital. Healthcare is going to be important, especially as our population ages.
[00:15:23] Ben Graham:
And number three is you have to have entertainment, right? Whether it’s a golf course, or a good swimming pool, or Canada, it’s a hockey rink. In the States, it’s a good ball diamond or a football field. You have to have those three core components. If you have those, your community’s probably going to be strong because you’re going to attract non-agriculture or non-rural dwellers that want a different way of life. And I think for a farm family and a producer, ensuring that rural life is supported by rural communities because I don’t want to have to drive an hour for groceries every day.
[00:15:54] Ben Graham:
I think when we look at the true community part of the functionality of the community, it’s really important. From a ability to transfer information, you’re right. Every key center, small, rural town in North America had an agricultural extension office. They had a vibrant economy for insurance, grain delivery, crop input purchases, seed. All that stuff existed in small towns. Now, as that gets a little more consolidated and the farms get bigger, they want to deal with things a little differently, but they still all understand the importance of having a town that is thriving nearby.
[00:16:30] Ben Graham:
For us, it’s participating locally, making sure that we buy local when we can, when it makes sense, making sure we participate in social clubs and entertainment activities so that the venues still survive, participating in information transfer, forcing ourselves out of this digital world and having face-to-face meetings in a community, figuring out how to adapt to all the new technologies that’s out there. And how do you take that balance of The Dirt podKast that can be consumed at any time versus a Lions Club meeting at 7:00 on a Thursday night? That whole balance is important and we’re going to see how this next generation evolves like that. I know it’s a long answer, Mike, on that information transfer doing it better. I think AI, again, it sounds like a broken record, but AI is going to help too because once it gets the information, it can process it faster and get it more relevant for the individual, whether that’s a farm or a personal life, it’s going to help it a lot.
[00:17:28] Ben Graham:
But the information has to be out there in formats that AI can go gather and evaluate and bring it all together. There’s a lot going on, not just in agriculture, but in rural lives. And I think that a lot of people are scared of AI or worry about it. To me, it’s about embracing the opportunity it provides because we are a very smart race, the human race. We sometimes think we’re smarter than we are, I think in some cases. As we adopt new technology, AI just going to be one more step, no different than a car going from horses, or from ox and pulling a plow to a tractor, and a steam engine to a tractor. I think this is the next evolution, and we have to embrace it and figure out how we optimize it to make our lives better.
[00:18:12] Mike Howell:
Ben, you’ve mentioned AI, and I know that’s coming, and there’s got to be other things that’s coming. What do you see happening in agriculture in North America in the next 20 to 25 years? We’ve talked about what we’ve seen in our careers over the last 20 years. What’s around the corner?
[00:18:25] Ben Graham:
I get asked that a lot, Mike, and you see it too as an agronomist. There’s so much going on. We have so many companies walking in our offices across North America going, “I’ve got this great new idea. Can you help me sell it?” And it’s kind of two batches of people. Well, three. There’s batch number one, which is a really smart engineer, or inventor, or somebody that invented a technology specifically for agriculture and they were born and raised in a rural environment or on a farm, and they want to bring that forward. There’s that whole bucket of people. Then, there’s the super smart engineer that works in oil and gas or in aerospace industry and they built a technology that they think would be appropriate or adopted in agriculture. They walk in the door. They’re an interesting beast because they know literally nothing about agriculture and they need a lot of help to even see if it will fit.
[00:19:12] Ben Graham:
And then, there’s that middle ground in between where it was good technology that was out there that maybe can be revised now with more sensors, and reading, and automation that’ll bring it back. So, there’s kind of three buckets there, Mike. I think when I look at what’s next, I think soil sampling, virtual soil sampling, modeling around that fertility world that you live every day, Mike, I think there’s going to be vegetation analysis through satellites that are going to say, “Here’s what your prescription needs to be on that acre without ever physically touching that acre.” I think that’s coming pretty fast. I look at when it comes to automation, fully autonomous equipment is coming. I know that Raven had bought DOT, which was a fully-autonomous tractor power unit, I guess they were calling it. You go to AGRITECHNICA in Germany, I don’t know how many autonomous tractors or power units were on display there. That’s coming really fast. I think regulation is one of the biggest challenges we’re facing to make sure that that new technology can come quicker.
[00:20:14] Ben Graham:
When I look outside that technology, I think crop decision planning’s going to take a quantum leap. It’s going to take all these data points that we know exist, but they’re so onerous for a human being to process and put it into a real decision-making tool. Imagine with this virtual soil sampling that could go back and take 10 years of soil sampling data, couple it with nutrient depletion by crop, look at market prospects on what the price of corn and soybeans are going to be or wheat and canola in the upcoming year and analyze eight million data points on what the markets are doing, and then, couple it with the geopolitical environment, and then, come back to you and say, “Look, Mike, on that acre, you should be planting lima beans.” That technology’s coming really fast, that your return per acre is going to be greater on this than that.
[00:21:02] Ben Graham:
It’s not just going to be a corn, soybean play in the U.S., and it’s not just going to be a wheat, canola play in Canada. There’s going to be really heavy analysis that’ll take in weather projections and past and historical that are all going to come back and say, “Mike, you’d be silly if you didn’t plant corn on that acre.” Or, “Mike, the way the market’s going with my analysis and all these data points that I’ve brought into play now, you really should be considering sorghum. And you never grew it on the farm before and here’s how you grow it.” That technology is super exciting because all the pieces are already there, but the ability to process that volume of information to make virtual recommendations, it’s just not there today, and it will be momentarily.
[00:21:42] Mike Howell:
Ben, you’ve mentioned AI and we’ve talked about that a good bit here. That’s something that’s been in my vocabulary since I was big enough to walk. I was 10 years old, and my dad had me out in the pasture and we were AI-ing cows, and he still tells me that AI is here, but it’s not going to take over everything. You still have to have a cleanup bull. He doesn’t think AI is the answer to everything, but that technology’s here, and a lot of people are scared of it. I have played around with it a little bit just to see what kind of answers I could get. Sometimes I can get a right answer or close to a right answer and sometimes there’s no telling what’ll come out. It gives me an answer that’s nowhere near right.
[00:22:15] Mike Howell:
I’ve got enough education and been around the block enough, I can pick out what’s right and what’s wrong a lot of times on these answers. Somebody that doesn’t have as much experience as I do may not be able to pick out those right answers and wrong answers quite as easily. How can somebody tell if the computer’s telling them the right answer or the wrong answer?
[00:22:32] Ben Graham:
That’s going to be the biggest challenge, especially in the short term, Mike. Example I use is my son, I think he was 16 at the time, this was a year ago. We changed his winter tires and put on his summer tires, which you don’t have to worry about in Mississippi. I said, “Well, just Google the torque rate for your lug nuts.” He didn’t Google it. He used his AI tool. I think it was ChatGPT, and he went in and got a number. And he said, “Dad, but this torque wrench doesn’t go that high.” And I’m like, “What do you mean, son?” And he said, “Well, it’s telling me to do it at 250 and our torque wrench only goes to 150.” And I’m like, “Whoa.” And I thought, well, he got inch pounds versus foot pounds or something confused. And I went out and said, “Show me.”
[00:23:11] Ben Graham:
And he showed it to me on his phone and yeah, it was just wrong. And first of all, if there was a wrench that could do that, he would’ve destroyed something doing it, and that’s going to be out there. And I think as we get through that, having people, the real live humans that can process and validate is going to be very important moving forward. If you don’t have that kind of ancillary or complimentary information to validate with, I think the benefit right now is it speeds up a lot of monotonous or more administrative tasks. It can speed it up right away that then you can validate instead of having to do all the legwork yourself.
[00:23:46] Ben Graham:
In the interim, it’s going to be a big deal to make sure that it’s validated and that human voice is not going away in my mind. When I look at the job we do from marketing communications, there’s all sorts of AI tools that’ll build you a new logo, but does it check to make sure it’s going to fit with your target audience to make sure that it wasn’t set up wrong so that the combine auger wasn’t on the wrong side? There’s all that kind of stuff that we’re going to see in AI over the next couple years, especially in agriculture that has to be validated by a marketing communication expert, or a farmer, or a cattle producer. That old AI analogy, you still need that cleanup bull and the cleanup bull is probably going to be a human that has eyes that can validate and make sure that is right.
[00:24:28] Mike Howell:
Ben, we talked earlier about growers adopting new technology and how some of the older generation is slow to adapt this technology and the younger ones tend to adapt this technology sooner. But when we’re talking about this AI technology, how do you see farmers adapting that? You mentioned the AI giving you a soil sample readout and telling you what crops to plant based on your soil analysis and their tissue samples, things like that. Do you see farmers trusting that AI and go into that to get these information or do you still think they need somebody there to interpret those results and walk them through that?
[00:25:00] Ben Graham:
Well, I think today, Mike, they need help interpreting. I think into the future, as the models become more robust and proven, it’s going to need less and less analysis. I think it’ll get to the point with this younger generation, back to the sorghum analogy that I used earlier, if you’re sitting there and AI comes back and says, “You should grow crop X and here’s why,” because that’s where AI’s going to get to. Here’s the 3,200 things that I analyzed to make this recommendation. It’s going to become easier to validate, that there will be a trust factor that will be developed, especially in the younger generation that will be living with it their whole lives. I think when it justifies and gives you the data that it uses or a summary of it to come to its conclusion, that’s when it’s going to be valuable. And I think it’s going to be limited to certain things.
[00:25:48] Ben Graham:
See and spray. Yeah, is that going to get real accurate? It probably is. Drone technology and using that coupled with see and spray, those things are going to get pretty good, and they’re not going to need a human validation after a certain point. But all that information has to be created by humans. Identifying what a wild buckwheat plant is versus milkweed versus… AI doesn’t know that. Humans had to know it, create a picture of it, label that picture, feed it into AI so it knew what it was looking at, and then, that has to be tested to make sure it’s accurate. All that work that’s going to go into AI has to be done upfront. And then, that’s the beauty of machine learning is it should technically improve on itself every time somebody flags an error, it won’t make that error again.
[00:26:30] Ben Graham:
To me, I think there will be a time where people will just trust it, especially a younger generation. You and I might be there going, “Well, I don’t know. My great-grandfather said he tried to grow sorghum, and it didn’t work. What’s different now?” And AI will tell us. Weather conditions, soil pattern, residue, varieties, the enhancement of hybrids. Like, who knows what all those changes are that it’ll take into consideration before it makes recommendations. And you asked about that new technology. We’ve been living with it for a while. I think when New Holland launched their newest combine in 2002, we did the global launch on it and maybe it was later than that, ’06, it was evaluating 50 or 60 processes every quarter second and changing rotor speed and all the variables, fans and all those things. That was AI. There was parameters that were built into those combines that were truly, as we would call them today, AI. At the time, it was just enhancements.
[00:27:25] Ben Graham:
We’ve been living with it for a while. Variable rate planters have been around for a long time. You can change seed rate on the fly, adapt to soil conditions. We’ve had a lot of technology on farm that’s been AI for a long time that didn’t involve cattle insemination, but it’s coming fast. It really is.
[00:27:42] Mike Howell:
Ben, any new technology has got to overcome some hurdles down the road. What do you see as the major obstacles that AI is going to have to overcome before it’s widely adopted?
[00:27:51] Ben Graham:
I think number one is going to be trust. Any kind of output or recommendation coming from AI, there’s got to be some trust behind it. Number two is that ability for machine learning not to offend or scare people as it learns and evolves how to be better at whatever task you’re asking it to do. It goes back to that trust. We’ve got to trust that that’s of value to either your operation or humanity. I think the other things are going to be certain industries are not rampant with information that it can gather from.
[00:28:25] Ben Graham:
If you’re a new farmer that wants to try a triple crop rotation where you plant in three crops at the same time, and there’s no data that shows how that’s going to operate, there’s some theoretical data that if you plant these three crops at the same time, they’ll ripen at the same time, you’ll be able to harvest them and there’s technology to separate the crop so you can get three crops on the same acre at the same time, and there’s no data on that for AI to go gather and create opinions or thoughts, that’s a big challenge. And agriculture is, as we’re moving towards innovation fast, we are such a specialized sector that there may not be that background data that can help fuel an AI engine.
[00:29:04] Mike Howell:
Ben, I’ve been thinking about this while you were talking and it’s been running through my head for a couple of years now and I really don’t know where I stand on this. I’m leaning both directions, but I guess I need to tell a story to lead up to this question. A year or so ago, my youngest son came home from school and went upstairs to do his homework. He told me when he walked in the door, he said, “Dad, I got to go write a paper. Got a three-page essay I’ve got to write.” I said, “Well, you better go get on it.” “It’s due tomorrow.” I said, “Yeah, you better go get on it pretty quick.” It wasn’t five minutes. He came back down and I said, “I thought you were going to go write an essay.” “It’s done.” I said, “Whoa, wait a minute. Let me see what you got.”
[00:29:40] Mike Howell:
He brought it down, and I started reading, and it was really good. I was impressed. I said, “How did you do that?” I said, “You didn’t write this this quick.” He said, “Oh, I used AI.” I said, “That’s not what you’re supposed to do. That’s not teaching you how to write this.” And he said, “Well, I’m learning how to use AI, and it’s giving me the information. That’s what everybody’s using these days.” And we went back upstairs and he had to show me how he did that, and that was one of my first experiences with AI. He showed me how he programmed it in, what he wanted it to do. And then, after it spit out the results, he changed some stuff and made it even better after that. And I got to thinking AI is a thing of the future, and the schools are telling these kids not to use it to do their homework, and the colleges even are making kids sign the stuff that they’re not using artificial intelligence to do their schoolwork.
[00:30:23] Mike Howell:
But this is the technology of the future. We need to be teaching these kids how to use this to a certain extent. But yes, they still need to know how to do reading, and writing, and arithmetic like we had to learn. You still have to know that stuff. So, where do we draw the line here? How do we achieve this balance and teach this generation how to use this technology the way it needs to be used?
[00:30:42] Ben Graham:
Well, and I think our sons are obviously from the same generation because I had the exact same experience with about a six-minute essay, and that was his exact line is, “I’ve got to use it. I’m learning to use it. It’s going to be the future.” I think it’s going to be one of the biggest conundrums in society, Mike, is do they even have to learn math anymore? Because you just speak into a thing and say, “I need 330,000 divided by 13, and can you put that into an integer and do this and that?” It’s just going to do it. And I really worry about what happens to society when we lose some of those core structural needs, because [inaudible 00:31:20]. Working on fundamentals and ensuring those fundamentals exist for not just our kids, but for our kids’ kids is going to be important because something’s going to happen someday that may require somebody to be able to add numbers on a piece of paper. And I hope society realizes the importance of that.
[00:31:36] Mike Howell:
Ben, my prime example of what you just said, do we need to know math? And if you forget how to do it, we don’t think back about it. But if I ask you what somebody’s phone number was 25 years ago, you could probably tell me two or 300 people’s phone numbers. How many phone numbers can you tell me today?
[00:31:52] Ben Graham:
I’d be lucky to think of five. My wife just got a new phone number, and she’s had it for two months, and you think I can remember that darn thing, but I can remember her old one because it’s on your… Wife on my phone. That’s a challenge that’s happening today. I know there’s lots of research on it.
[00:32:06] Mike Howell:
Exactly. We don’t have to remember that stuff and we don’t remember it. If we forget how to do math, we’re not going to remember how to do math.
[00:32:13] Ben Graham:
My son would tell me that it’s just freeing up more capacity for my brain to do other things, which makes me giggle because is that more capacity meaning just a little more time watching YouTube? But when it comes to agriculture and we look at what’s going on in that world and all that time that you have on the equipment or because your chicken barn’s automated and you don’t have to go out and actually feed, you just hit the button, and then, you go out once a day to make sure everything’s okay, with that time created, what is that going to do to agriculture? Is it going to be absorbed with engaging with AI, trying to extract information? Is it making learning so that AI can read the temperature of the turkey barn and analyze the waste treatment coming out of the turkey barn and make adjustments to ration because there’s a disease coming to the flock?
[00:32:59] Ben Graham:
Those are things that are going to add value guaranteed, but it’s where does that line stop? That’s what I’m really intrigued to see over the next 10 to 15 years, Mike, as this technology evolves, and it’s going to create new technology. That’s the other thing that everyone is missing in agriculture is as AI takes hold, it’s going to say, “I’m missing these three types of data or a tool that could do this for me,” that we didn’t even know we were missing. And that’s a whole other layer that’s going to be put in on top of AI and that’s where it gets real interesting real fast.
[00:33:33] Mike Howell:
Ben, we may have to pick this podcast up in another 10 or 15 years and see how well we did predict and what was coming. Ben, do you have any closing comments you want to leave our listeners with before we sign off for today?
[00:33:43] Ben Graham:
Well, Mike, as always, it’s great to see you, and I appreciate the time I get to spend with you. And for those people that are thinking through that and you have comments, let us know whether it’s you, Mike, or me. I’m really curious on where people’s minds are with regard to it. I think when we look at it, agriculture’s done an exceptional job of adopting valuable technology. I have 100% expectation that whether it’s AI-driven or other new technologies that we encounter in agriculture over the next 5, 10, 50 years, I think agriculture will do a great job of evaluating them for value and personal enhancement, and the right ones will get adopted and the wrong ones won’t. Agriculture and farmers are one of the biggest judge of character and opportunity, and I’m super excited to see what’s going to happen and you and I in 10 years, can sit on the porch and rock back in our rocking chair, and have a beer, and see how close we were.
[00:34:39] Mike Howell:
Sounds like a plan, Ben. Thanks a lot for joining me today. Really enjoyed this episode. Listeners, we appreciate you tuning in. If you will, hang around for just a couple of moments, and we’ll be right back with segment two.
[00:34:51] Mike Howell:
Farming isn’t farming without questions, and now, there’s a place to go for answers. At eKonomics, an entire team of agronomists is waiting and ready to help for free. No question is too big or too small. Visit nutrien-eKonomics with a K, dot com, and submit your question with the Ask an Agronomist feature.
[00:35:13] Mike Howell:
Listeners, welcome back for segment two. We’ve got Dr. Alan Blaylock back in the studio with us today, and we’re going to be doing an ask an agronomist question. Alan, welcome back.
[00:35:22] Alan Blaylock:
Thanks, Mike. I enjoy these conversations in actually addressing questions that people have submitted to us on our eKonomics website.
[00:35:30] Mike Howell:
Alan, today’s question is about one of our important ratios that we’ve spent a lot of time talking about. The question is, how do nitrogen and sulfur work together in my crop?
[00:35:39] Alan Blaylock:
Well, Mike, nitrogen and sulfur are very closely related in plant nutrition and also in animal nutrition because nitrogen and sulfur are both components of essential amino acids and proteins. To get the maximum benefit of our nitrogen, we have to have that balanced with an appropriate amount of sulfur and vice versa. If either one is in excess and the other is deficient, then the plant is not as efficient at manufacturing those amino acids and proteins that the plant needs. This is an element or this is a ratio in plant nutrition that we often pay attention to and we can analyze the plant tissue and look at that ratio and see if they’re out of balance. And we often see this, an excess nitrogen-to-sulfur ratio, a very high nitrogen-to-sulfur ratio when we apply high rates of nitrogen and we haven’t applied any sulfur, and sometimes we can induce a deficiency of one of those nutrients by applying an excess of the other.
[00:36:36] Mike Howell:
Alan, thanks for your wisdom on this. Listeners, we appreciate you tuning in, and as always, if you need more information on anything we’ve talked about today, you can visit our website, that’s nutrien-eKonomics with a K, dot com. Until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.
[00:36:54] Mike Howell:
Hey guys, if you like what you heard today, do us a favor and share this podcast with someone else. It could be your neighbor, your friend, your crop advisor, or whoever you think would enjoy it. Your support helps ensure future episodes. So, please like, subscribe, share, and rate the show wherever you’re listening from.
