By Rudi Spruit, CanACT President, University of Guelph
Today’s farms are more modern than ever with enough technology to care for hundreds of animals with a phone.

From GPS to weight monitoring to breeding problems out of genetics, technology has come a long way and continues to move forward at an extremely rapid pace. Every type of farm utilizes technology in some way and continues to improve to try and produce more food for less money.

If I had asked my grandfather how many cows he could milk, he would have said he could probably milk 45, although he would then be swamped with work. So, when my dad took over the farm in the 80s, he purchased his first computer and increased the herd size to 60 cows and 200 pigs. The computer allowed him to manage the animals more efficiently and decreased the amount of paperwork there was to fill out. Now, instead of using a calculator and paper, he was able to transfer all the information to a spreadsheet, completing a task that would have taken hours in just mere minutes.

In the early 2000s, we adopted a new computer program. This program allowed us to track each and every cow’s performance on an hourly basis. We can see which cow walked more or less than usual, if they lay down more than usual, if they’re not eating enough, or if they’re metabolizing too much body fat for milk output. We can also check the health of every cow by analyzing their milk as they are being milked. This kind of management level has increased our herd size to 200 milking cows, but takes less work than the 35 my grandfather was in charge of.

This is just one example of how technology has shaped our farm, but there are many more. In pig barns they now have automatic sorters, which read a computer chip in the pig’s ear, much like a tracking device in a spy movie. Based on the individual pig’s needs, it will feed the animal and automatically sort the pig in the appropriate pen. In chicken barns, they have automatic scales that hang in the barn and can tell how much each chicken weighs. Based on that information a farmer can tell if there are problems with the feed or the environment, as well as determine when they are ready for market.

In crops, there have been amazing strides to improve efficiency. Most consumers have heard of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), which have probably been the most effective tools in the field over the past 30 years. GMOs allow farmers to produce more food with fewer chemicals, fewer fossil fuels, and less inputs overall. Recently, however, Monsanto has come out with an ingenious new approach that really gets to the bare bones of resistant weeds, called RNAi RNA interference. This exciting technology is still in the research phase, but will allow weeds to be controlled while greatly reducing chemical application. This is a huge step forward, and I think it will be one of the biggest advancements of the decade.

There are many more technologies being implemented on farms, from running equipment using GPS technology – which is advanced enough to run a tractor and plant a field by itself – to using drones to assess crop and weed growth in a field to make site-specific fertilization decisions.

What’s most interesting about all this technology is that it is available to every farmer in the world, and with today’s smartphone and cellular networks, any farmer can access all of the information produced by milk meters, GPS, drones, and sorters anywhere in the world from the palm of their hands. Farming isn’t a boring, hands-on career anymore. More and more, farmers are becoming managers and using technology to their advantage.

Inside Farming is a series of articles written by Canadian Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (CanACT) members at the University of Guelph.

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Posted by Farm and Food Care on May 2nd, 2014 :: Filed under Agricultural Advocates,Dairy cattle,Innovation and technology
Tags :: Farm life, Farmers, technology
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