October 14, 2024 • 20 mins
What if you could revolutionize your small farm's efficiency with just a touch of technology? Join us as we tackle this intriguing question, exploring the intersection of tradition and innovation in the world of small-scale farming. We share personal stories, including an engaging story about a tech-phobic farmer who thrives without modern tools, and highlight the balancing act between nostalgia and progress. From John Deere's Operation Center to AI-driven tools like precision spraying, we examine the benefits and potential pitfalls of embracing technology in agriculture. Discover how these advancements could drastically cut chemical use and costs, even as small farmers face significant hurdles.
Our episode continues with a deep dive into optimizing farm operations through precise weather predictions and task management tools. Hear firsthand how BAM's weather service saved us from a costly loss, and learn about the power of tools like Todoist in managing farm tasks. By integrating human expertise with technology, we aim to transform farming into a more manageable and profitable endeavor. Plus, find out how data management tools can track crucial farm metrics like rent and fertilizer costs, ultimately enhancing business operations and profitability. Embrace this journey with us to discover a brighter future for small farms through smarter tech integration.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jon (00:00):
Welcome to Just Say hey, the podcast a podcast where we
talk about the things thatmatter to small farms, whether
it's marketing technology,business, agronomy, equipment.
We talk about the things thatmatter to small farms and that
help us as people and help usrun our farms better.
And today I'm going to talkabout the hated word technology,
because it's everywhere aroundus.
(00:20):
It's everywhere and I've beenin the technology, been in and
out of the technology businessas a software guy or some of the
things that I've had to do inthe marketing side of things
using MarTech or marketingtechnology.
I've been in and out of it myentire career.
Some of my favorite daysfarming In fact my favorite days
(00:47):
farming are the days where Idon't have to deal with it,
where I can just get in anold-fashioned tractor, get in a
tractor with no technology andjust go do a job for a day or go
work cattle for a day, justpushing them from field to field
, where I don't have to worryabout the notifications and all
of the things that come with thebenefits of technology.
So they call them.
But there is a lot of thethings that come with the
(01:07):
benefits of technology, so theycall them, but there is a lot of
good that can come from it.
The other day I was talking toa friend of mine.
He's an older farmer, up in hisI'd say he's in his late 60s, I
don't know, but he was verytech-phobic, wanted nothing to
do with it, didn't own asmartphone, doesn't own one
Great man.
He has no interest in it,doesn't want to do it, doesn't
(01:28):
want to think about it, it's notpart of his business and he's
gotten to where he's gottenwithout it and that's the way he
wants to run his business.
However, for our business, wehave to utilize the limited
resources we have efficientlyand in many cases we can become
(01:50):
more efficient by utilizing alittle bit of technology.
Let's get into it.
Welcome to Just Say hey, thepodcast where we talk about what
matters to small farms, whetherit's business, marketing,
agronomy, equipment, livestock,health.
If it matters to small farms,we'll probably talk about it
here, so let's get into it.
So I was talking about myfriend who's very tech phobic
and he lives in his bubble and Ilove it.
(02:13):
I'm so thankful that there arepeople that can still do it.
We struggle with managing simplethings like schedules or what
equipment is where and what dowe have to do.
What's the list of the neverending list of tasks that we
have to accomplish and did weget them done?
And what fields are we workingon and what farms are we working
(02:33):
on and barns and cattle and hayand all of the things that we
have to do and the people thatwe work with, and it's a very
inefficient process most of thetime, and so we have leaned on
some technology to help us outand I'll talk about some of it
as we go on.
And, if you stick with me for alittle bit, I'm going to talk
(02:55):
about my favorite tech servicethat we use.
We used it in all of 2024.
I think we started with them in2023.
Not 100% sure, but I'm prettysure we started with them last
year.
If you break technology downinto kind of its parts, right,
there's ag tech and there arethings like if you use John
(03:19):
Deere, you use John DeereOperation Center, you can use
software packages like CattleMaxif you run a cattle farm, or
FarmBrite if you run a smallfarm, or Climate's FieldView if
you're a large row cropoperation and all of these
things help us manage differentparts and some of them try to be
(03:41):
all things to all people orthey try to handle.
You know they do one thingreally well and they do other
things not so well.
With artificial intelligence,there's no regulations on what
(04:07):
you can have it do and what youcan't right now, and there needs
to be some, whether it's anindustry or God forbid.
I'm not a fan of governmentregulation, but some sort of a
regulation that's sayingstopping the unethical things
that can be done usingartificial intelligence where
they can impact the outcome ofelections or impact business to
(04:28):
conduct their business byputting out fake videos.
You've heard of deep fakevideos where they can take an
image and make it look and soundlike you're saying things you
don't.
It's a very scary part ofartificial intelligence.
There are some fantastic thingscoming out with artificial
(05:14):
intelligence and one of them andI want to say it was John Deere
.
And then there was exactly what.
It is Not really set up forfarmers because it tells me how
to grow it better, and I don'tneed to grow it better, I need
to kill it and it doesn't giveme that information.
But this idea of a computer canlook at a picture and determine
what that plant is.
(05:34):
If you can picture a sprayerthat's 120 feet wide, running 15
miles an hour over a field, andthere is a camera that is
looking down at the ground,determining whether the plant
it's driving over is a plantyou're trying to grow or you're
(05:55):
trying to get rid of, and thencan turn a spray nozzle on and
off as it drives over that plantat 15 miles an hour.
120 feet wide.
15 miles an hour that's reallycool because think about the
impact that that could have onchemical usage.
Whether you think about it froman environmental impact or you
(06:17):
think about it in a cost savingshas the ability to do both and
do them really well.
Now, from a cost standpoint,it's not down to the point that
a small guy like me can reallytake advantage of it, though I
would like to.
We still take our prescriptionsand go to the field and we have
to spray a broad coveragebecause that's just the only.
That's the ability we have atthis point.
(06:39):
I think that will continue toget better and it's very
exciting technology when we tryto solve business issues for our
farm.
Some of these ag tech companiesJohn Deere Op Center tries to
do it.
I don't think it does it verywell.
I think its software some ofits software is really really
well done.
Some of it is an add-on and anafterthought and doesn't really
(07:02):
integrate as well as it should,but they're trying.
There are in a small farmoperation like ours.
We can look to other businesssectors because we have a lot of
the same challenges that mostsmall business, medium-sized
businesses have Scheduling,to-dos, assigning tasks,
(07:23):
completing projects,communicating with employees and
we're going to stay out of themarketing side of technology for
right now, because that's notreally what this is about.
This is about using technologyin our business to run our
businesses, not so much themarketing side of our business.
There is so much that we canlook at as a farm where we have
similar processes to just aboutevery business.
(07:46):
We have to schedule employees,we have to have tasks and to-dos
, we have projects, we havecommunicate with each other
internally so we're not doingthe same job twice.
So we can look at the generalbusiness.
We can look for apps andservices that accomplish our
challenges, can look for appsand services that accomplish our
(08:09):
challenges.
I want to talk for a secondabout my favorite technology,
and it's a tech service that wehave used for two years now and
absolutely think the world ofthem.
I think they so far.
They're not a young company butthey have been fantastic with
us and we are a super small,small tater.
They deal with people like theMajor League, baseball and the
(08:30):
Indy 500 and I mean all thesecool, massive, massive
organizations, and we're just asmall farm and they do an
absolutely brilliant job with usand that's a company called BAM
Weather.
Called BAM Weather.
They are a service slashtechnology.
They give you, you download anapp and if you've ever used
(08:52):
weather apps, I'm sure if you'rea farmer, if you're farming,
you use a weather app.
And if you use something likethe Weather Channel or NOAA
Radar or Apple's Weather or theone that comes with your Google
phone, they're good, they'reperfectly, you know, good-ish,
they're good, they're perfectly,you know, good-ish.
The challenge is when you haveto make weather-based decisions
that cost money.
I'll give you an example,perfect example.
(09:14):
And this happened the firsttime we really put the guys at
BAM to the test was we wereharvesting a big field of
alfalfa.
We were in the process of, wehad a lot of bales on the ground
and we were focusing on someorganizational things.
And I still, even though I havetheir service they have a radar
(09:36):
as part of their service.
I have a different radar appthat I use.
I check it as real, fast andeasy.
And I looked at it and saw that, even though the television
weather said no rain tomorrow,you know, don't forget it.
And saw that even though thetelevision weather said no rain
tomorrow, you know, don't forget, it's going to be hot.
Pack your sunscreen, have agreat day.
The challenge was we sawisolated pop-up showers.
So we got with BAM and we said,hey, what's going on?
(09:58):
Is this going to hit us or arewe good?
And within five minutes theycame back and said you know what
?
You're going to have some raincoming your way.
It's going to start.
It looks like it's buildingfrom east to west.
It's going to hit you in abouttwo to three hours.
Thank you very much.
Stopped what we were doing, putall of our energies into picking
(10:22):
bales up out of the field.
Now, this was a prime gradeoutfit.
I mean, this was some beautiful, beautiful stuff that we sell
to our horse customers.
We were able to get enoughbales out of the field.
That equaled about in the barnwas about $20,000 worth of hay.
That we were able to get in thebarn Didn't look very pretty.
Our stacks weren't perfect, butit was in the barn and
undercover before the rain hit.
(10:44):
That was a huge, huge thing forus that paid for the
subscription for years to come,years and years to come.
That service was kind of acombination of utilizing
technology and them having a lotof technology to accurately
predict weather for specificlocations, and the service of
(11:06):
having a human who is ameteorologist, an expert in that
field, look at our specificsituation, make a determination
and give us actionable advice,give us advice that we could
actually act on.
And when you combine those twothings it made for a wonderful.
I mean we were thrilled.
(11:27):
Did we still lose some hay?
Yeah, but we saved so muchmoney just in that one day.
This has happened multiple,multiple times over the year.
Or the value what a great valuefor service if your farm is
very weather dependent, and Imean the accuracy, like for us,
if that hay gets wet, getsrained on, the value of that hay
(11:49):
plummets.
We're constantly in contactwith those guys.
So check them out at bamwxcom,I think is their website.
I'll try to put it in thedescription.
You know I said I was going togive you kind of a quick way to
solve problems on the farm.
And here it is.
It's real simple Look at yourfarm.
Like we do every year At theend of the year, we look, we get
(12:10):
everybody together and we saywhat did we do well?
We spend just a couple minuteson saying, hey, we did a couple
of things really well, but wefocus on what did we do poorly,
what did we fail at, where wereour biggest hurdles?
And because those are thethings we need to fix, obviously
you're going to repeat thethings you did well, but we need
to fix the things that we didnot do well.
(12:32):
For example, you may haveproblems scheduling For us.
Our schedule is so chaoticbecause we don't know when we're
going to bail until a day or sobefore, because we have to
follow the weather, andespecially in our area where we
have unpredictable, very, veryhard to predict weather.
So we're waiting until days outand saying, okay, we think it's
(12:55):
going to be here, we think it'sgoing to be here and it might
roll a couple of days either way, depending on precipitation,
depending on other factors.
So when we get a window wherewe think we're going to go in,
we have to start calling theguys that are helping us in the
field because they're notfull-time employees.
They're not full-time people,they're guys that just come out
and they mow and they rake andthey help us out.
(13:16):
So I've got to start schedulingthem.
So I look at these challengesthat we have, whatever they are,
and I make a list of them and Itry to fit them in kind of
generalized categories, becausethese challenges are not
generally the things, especiallyin a small farm.
They're not generally thethings that the big ag tech
(13:38):
companies are going to solve,for these are things almost
every business has, or you'llfind that many, many businesses
have these same challenges.
We have a lot of small projects, a lot of little things that
need to get done.
You know what Most companieshave lots of little things that
need to get done, and so you canlook at task management
(14:03):
services.
You can look at larger, morecomplex project management
services.
You can look at these thingsbecause they solve these same
problems for thousands ofbusinesses and they probably
could be made to apply to ourfarm.
(14:29):
Back to using it we stoppedusing it just recently just
because it got too chaotic atthe end of the year, but I think
we're going to go back becauseit's a really simple, easy to
use platform and that's calledTodoist.
I think to have a team versionof it you have to have a paid
account.
I think there's a free versionof it just to manage to do.
But if you just need a simpleto-do list that comes free with
your phone, I'm pretty sure ifyou have a smartphone there's a
(14:50):
list on there that you can makeyour list of things to do and
check it off.
The problem we had is we have,say we've got 50 tasks that need
to get done, but we could alsoassign those to people.
After every mowing well, mowerneeds to get cleaned.
After every mowing well, mowerneeds to get cleaned.
(15:12):
Blades need to be eitherflipped or changed.
The rollers need to be cleanedout.
We need to go out and kind ofcheck the bearings real quick.
Go through the simple, gothrough, check the oils,
everything that gets done inservicing and prepping the mower
or swather for another round ofmowing.
That guy has to know what to do.
I'm not saying the job issimple, but it's prep mower.
Assign the task to somebody.
This helps you because nowyou've assigned it, now as a
(15:36):
manager, you're stillresponsible to go out and make
sure it gets done.
If you can get your guy to lookat it, he now knows what he has
to do.
He doesn't even have to botheryou to do it.
He says I know I need to dothis, go do it To us.
It doesn't matter when it getsdone, so long as it's done
before the next time we need it.
Project management there's a lotof really good ones.
There's a lot of reallyflexible project managements.
(15:56):
In fact, we had a challenge wetried several ag tech companies
to work, you know, to find anapplication to store because we
wanted to have harvest and yielddata for our fields.
So we wanted to know how manybales equals how many tons of
alfalfa or of hay, grass hay didwe get off of a field.
(16:17):
So then we can tie that back tohow much fertilizer did we put
on.
We can do our soil samples anddetermine fertilizer, determine
how much we took off, determinehow much what that yielded in
dollars.
We can actually track down tothe field of how many dollars we
took off, determine how muchwhat that yielded in dollars.
We can actually track down tothe field of how many dollars we
made off of each field, basedon yield tonnage and then
quality and those type of things, and we can store all of that
(16:39):
Ended up finding using a projectmanagement tool that also
allows us to store data anddisplay data in a way that is
very, very easy to use, and itwas simple.
I was able to create lists offields, lists of crops and then
(17:02):
tie all of this together, andthere's a couple of apps that
can do this pretty easily, andthey're you know of apps that
can do this pretty easily andthey're you know.
I say they're cheap, nothing'scheap, but they are inexpensive
for the value you can get out ofthem.
In looking at them, you candetermine, after you've made
your simple list of what are thechallenges you have.
Is it task management?
(17:22):
Is it data storage?
Is it, you know, all of thesethings?
Could it be done in aspreadsheet?
Yeah, probably some of our datamanagement could have been done
in a spreadsheet and could havebeen done on something like a,
you know, like a Googlespreadsheet.
But we wanted the ability tovisualize this data differently
because we wanted to be able tolook at, tie this back to other
(17:45):
systems that we use for sales,systems that we use for sales.
So we spent this much money infertilizer.
We got this much yield off thecrop.
That crop was graded at acertain grade which equaled we
had this many at this grade andthis grade, which equaled so
many dollars and then can tie itall back together was that
(18:05):
fertilizer investment.
Did it pay off?
If we make changes to ourfertilizer and nutrition plans,
do they pay off?
I mean, if you spend $100 on afertilizer plant and it only
gets you $50 in gain, well, youlost $50.
So we wanted to be able to tieall of this data back together
and we could not find an ag techcompany, something that tied it
(18:31):
all back together for us anddid it in an easy, quick way,
because one of the challengeswhen we're entering this data
we're generally coming out of afield, I'm in a tractor, pulling
my iPhone up and I'm typing inokay, we got 487 bales off of
this field.
So that ease of use is also afactor in here.
(18:51):
You know, just to kind of wrapup here real quick, don't you
know?
There's a lot of technology outthere and yes, it can be
daunting and yes, it can beintrusive, but as a business in
the business side of farming,data is important and being able
to manage that data and, moreimportantly, solve problems that
(19:12):
allow us to be more efficient.
That's what technology shouldbe used for.
I would encourage you to not beafraid of it If it can help you
grow your business.
Make a decision, make your listof challenges that you're having
scheduling, to-dos, projectmanagement, whatever that is and
then go search softwarepackages, services, technology
(19:37):
apps they call them software asa service, so they're almost
always subscription-based andfind one that you think works
for you or can be made to workfor you, because a lot of these
are customizable.
You can set all the tabs andtables and stuff works for you
or can be made to work for you,because a lot of these are
customizable.
You can set all the tabs andtables and stuff, take that and
use it for a year, make acommitment to use it for a year
(19:57):
and at the end of the year, makea decision Did it work for you
or did it not?
But having that data, I mean forus being able to look at an
individual field and saying,yeah, rent was this, fertilizer
was this seeding manpower toharvest it and haul it and stack
it was, and be able to tie allof that data in to how much did
(20:21):
we sell and did that field makeus money?
Did that fertilizer investmentmake us money?
Did that fertilizer investmentmake us money?
So, having all of that data ina place and using tools to do it
, not being afraid of the data,not being afraid of the
technology, can make yourbusiness easier to run.
If you're like me, the mostvaluable asset that I have is my
(20:44):
time, and if it can save metime and allow me to do a better
job, be more efficient time,and if it can save me time and
allow me to do a better job, bemore efficient, man, that's a
win.
So check out some apps andcheck out some things to run
your farm better.
Have a great day, good luck andGod bless.
Welcome to Just Say hey, the podcast a podcast where we
talk about the things thatmatter to small farms, whether
it's marketing technology,business, agronomy, equipment.
We talk about the things thatmatter to small farms and that
help us as people and help usrun our farms better.
And today I'm going to talkabout the hated word technology,
because it's everywhere aroundus.
(00:20):
It's everywhere and I've beenin the technology, been in and
out of the technology businessas a software guy or some of the
things that I've had to do inthe marketing side of things
using MarTech or marketingtechnology.
I've been in and out of it myentire career.
Some of my favorite daysfarming In fact my favorite days
(00:47):
farming are the days where Idon't have to deal with it,
where I can just get in anold-fashioned tractor, get in a
tractor with no technology andjust go do a job for a day or go
work cattle for a day, justpushing them from field to field
, where I don't have to worryabout the notifications and all
of the things that come with thebenefits of technology.
So they call them.
But there is a lot of thethings that come with the
(01:07):
benefits of technology, so theycall them, but there is a lot of
good that can come from it.
The other day I was talking toa friend of mine.
He's an older farmer, up in hisI'd say he's in his late 60s, I
don't know, but he was verytech-phobic, wanted nothing to
do with it, didn't own asmartphone, doesn't own one
Great man.
He has no interest in it,doesn't want to do it, doesn't
(01:28):
want to think about it, it's notpart of his business and he's
gotten to where he's gottenwithout it and that's the way he
wants to run his business.
However, for our business, wehave to utilize the limited
resources we have efficientlyand in many cases we can become
(01:50):
more efficient by utilizing alittle bit of technology.
Let's get into it.
Welcome to Just Say hey, thepodcast where we talk about what
matters to small farms, whetherit's business, marketing,
agronomy, equipment, livestock,health.
If it matters to small farms,we'll probably talk about it
here, so let's get into it.
So I was talking about myfriend who's very tech phobic
and he lives in his bubble and Ilove it.
(02:13):
I'm so thankful that there arepeople that can still do it.
We struggle with managing simplethings like schedules or what
equipment is where and what dowe have to do.
What's the list of the neverending list of tasks that we
have to accomplish and did weget them done?
And what fields are we workingon and what farms are we working
(02:33):
on and barns and cattle and hayand all of the things that we
have to do and the people thatwe work with, and it's a very
inefficient process most of thetime, and so we have leaned on
some technology to help us outand I'll talk about some of it
as we go on.
And, if you stick with me for alittle bit, I'm going to talk
(02:55):
about my favorite tech servicethat we use.
We used it in all of 2024.
I think we started with them in2023.
Not 100% sure, but I'm prettysure we started with them last
year.
If you break technology downinto kind of its parts, right,
there's ag tech and there arethings like if you use John
(03:19):
Deere, you use John DeereOperation Center, you can use
software packages like CattleMaxif you run a cattle farm, or
FarmBrite if you run a smallfarm, or Climate's FieldView if
you're a large row cropoperation and all of these
things help us manage differentparts and some of them try to be
(03:41):
all things to all people orthey try to handle.
You know they do one thingreally well and they do other
things not so well.
With artificial intelligence,there's no regulations on what
(04:07):
you can have it do and what youcan't right now, and there needs
to be some, whether it's anindustry or God forbid.
I'm not a fan of governmentregulation, but some sort of a
regulation that's sayingstopping the unethical things
that can be done usingartificial intelligence where
they can impact the outcome ofelections or impact business to
(04:28):
conduct their business byputting out fake videos.
You've heard of deep fakevideos where they can take an
image and make it look and soundlike you're saying things you
don't.
It's a very scary part ofartificial intelligence.
There are some fantastic thingscoming out with artificial
(05:14):
intelligence and one of them andI want to say it was John Deere
.
And then there was exactly what.
It is Not really set up forfarmers because it tells me how
to grow it better, and I don'tneed to grow it better, I need
to kill it and it doesn't giveme that information.
But this idea of a computer canlook at a picture and determine
what that plant is.
(05:34):
If you can picture a sprayerthat's 120 feet wide, running 15
miles an hour over a field, andthere is a camera that is
looking down at the ground,determining whether the plant
it's driving over is a plantyou're trying to grow or you're
(05:55):
trying to get rid of, and thencan turn a spray nozzle on and
off as it drives over that plantat 15 miles an hour.
120 feet wide.
15 miles an hour that's reallycool because think about the
impact that that could have onchemical usage.
Whether you think about it froman environmental impact or you
(06:17):
think about it in a cost savingshas the ability to do both and
do them really well.
Now, from a cost standpoint,it's not down to the point that
a small guy like me can reallytake advantage of it, though I
would like to.
We still take our prescriptionsand go to the field and we have
to spray a broad coveragebecause that's just the only.
That's the ability we have atthis point.
(06:39):
I think that will continue toget better and it's very
exciting technology when we tryto solve business issues for our
farm.
Some of these ag tech companiesJohn Deere Op Center tries to
do it.
I don't think it does it verywell.
I think its software some ofits software is really really
well done.
Some of it is an add-on and anafterthought and doesn't really
(07:02):
integrate as well as it should,but they're trying.
There are in a small farmoperation like ours.
We can look to other businesssectors because we have a lot of
the same challenges that mostsmall business, medium-sized
businesses have Scheduling,to-dos, assigning tasks,
(07:23):
completing projects,communicating with employees and
we're going to stay out of themarketing side of technology for
right now, because that's notreally what this is about.
This is about using technologyin our business to run our
businesses, not so much themarketing side of our business.
There is so much that we canlook at as a farm where we have
similar processes to just aboutevery business.
(07:46):
We have to schedule employees,we have to have tasks and to-dos
, we have projects, we havecommunicate with each other
internally so we're not doingthe same job twice.
So we can look at the generalbusiness.
We can look for apps andservices that accomplish our
challenges, can look for appsand services that accomplish our
(08:09):
challenges.
I want to talk for a secondabout my favorite technology,
and it's a tech service that wehave used for two years now and
absolutely think the world ofthem.
I think they so far.
They're not a young company butthey have been fantastic with
us and we are a super small,small tater.
They deal with people like theMajor League, baseball and the
(08:30):
Indy 500 and I mean all thesecool, massive, massive
organizations, and we're just asmall farm and they do an
absolutely brilliant job with usand that's a company called BAM
Weather.
Called BAM Weather.
They are a service slashtechnology.
They give you, you download anapp and if you've ever used
(08:52):
weather apps, I'm sure if you'rea farmer, if you're farming,
you use a weather app.
And if you use something likethe Weather Channel or NOAA
Radar or Apple's Weather or theone that comes with your Google
phone, they're good, they'reperfectly, you know, good-ish,
they're good, they're perfectly,you know, good-ish.
The challenge is when you haveto make weather-based decisions
that cost money.
I'll give you an example,perfect example.
(09:14):
And this happened the firsttime we really put the guys at
BAM to the test was we wereharvesting a big field of
alfalfa.
We were in the process of, wehad a lot of bales on the ground
and we were focusing on someorganizational things.
And I still, even though I havetheir service they have a radar
(09:36):
as part of their service.
I have a different radar appthat I use.
I check it as real, fast andeasy.
And I looked at it and saw that, even though the television
weather said no rain tomorrow,you know, don't forget it.
And saw that even though thetelevision weather said no rain
tomorrow, you know, don't forget, it's going to be hot.
Pack your sunscreen, have agreat day.
The challenge was we sawisolated pop-up showers.
So we got with BAM and we said,hey, what's going on?
(09:58):
Is this going to hit us or arewe good?
And within five minutes theycame back and said you know what
?
You're going to have some raincoming your way.
It's going to start.
It looks like it's buildingfrom east to west.
It's going to hit you in abouttwo to three hours.
Thank you very much.
Stopped what we were doing, putall of our energies into picking
(10:22):
bales up out of the field.
Now, this was a prime gradeoutfit.
I mean, this was some beautiful, beautiful stuff that we sell
to our horse customers.
We were able to get enoughbales out of the field.
That equaled about in the barnwas about $20,000 worth of hay.
That we were able to get in thebarn Didn't look very pretty.
Our stacks weren't perfect, butit was in the barn and
undercover before the rain hit.
(10:44):
That was a huge, huge thing forus that paid for the
subscription for years to come,years and years to come.
That service was kind of acombination of utilizing
technology and them having a lotof technology to accurately
predict weather for specificlocations, and the service of
(11:06):
having a human who is ameteorologist, an expert in that
field, look at our specificsituation, make a determination
and give us actionable advice,give us advice that we could
actually act on.
And when you combine those twothings it made for a wonderful.
I mean we were thrilled.
(11:27):
Did we still lose some hay?
Yeah, but we saved so muchmoney just in that one day.
This has happened multiple,multiple times over the year.
Or the value what a great valuefor service if your farm is
very weather dependent, and Imean the accuracy, like for us,
if that hay gets wet, getsrained on, the value of that hay
(11:49):
plummets.
We're constantly in contactwith those guys.
So check them out at bamwxcom,I think is their website.
I'll try to put it in thedescription.
You know I said I was going togive you kind of a quick way to
solve problems on the farm.
And here it is.
It's real simple Look at yourfarm.
Like we do every year At theend of the year, we look, we get
(12:10):
everybody together and we saywhat did we do well?
We spend just a couple minuteson saying, hey, we did a couple
of things really well, but wefocus on what did we do poorly,
what did we fail at, where wereour biggest hurdles?
And because those are thethings we need to fix, obviously
you're going to repeat thethings you did well, but we need
to fix the things that we didnot do well.
(12:32):
For example, you may haveproblems scheduling For us.
Our schedule is so chaoticbecause we don't know when we're
going to bail until a day or sobefore, because we have to
follow the weather, andespecially in our area where we
have unpredictable, very, veryhard to predict weather.
So we're waiting until days outand saying, okay, we think it's
(12:55):
going to be here, we think it'sgoing to be here and it might
roll a couple of days either way, depending on precipitation,
depending on other factors.
So when we get a window wherewe think we're going to go in,
we have to start calling theguys that are helping us in the
field because they're notfull-time employees.
They're not full-time people,they're guys that just come out
and they mow and they rake andthey help us out.
(13:16):
So I've got to start schedulingthem.
So I look at these challengesthat we have, whatever they are,
and I make a list of them and Itry to fit them in kind of
generalized categories, becausethese challenges are not
generally the things, especiallyin a small farm.
They're not generally thethings that the big ag tech
(13:38):
companies are going to solve,for these are things almost
every business has, or you'llfind that many, many businesses
have these same challenges.
We have a lot of small projects, a lot of little things that
need to get done.
You know what Most companieshave lots of little things that
need to get done, and so you canlook at task management
(14:03):
services.
You can look at larger, morecomplex project management
services.
You can look at these thingsbecause they solve these same
problems for thousands ofbusinesses and they probably
could be made to apply to ourfarm.
(14:29):
Back to using it we stoppedusing it just recently just
because it got too chaotic atthe end of the year, but I think
we're going to go back becauseit's a really simple, easy to
use platform and that's calledTodoist.
I think to have a team versionof it you have to have a paid
account.
I think there's a free versionof it just to manage to do.
But if you just need a simpleto-do list that comes free with
your phone, I'm pretty sure ifyou have a smartphone there's a
(14:50):
list on there that you can makeyour list of things to do and
check it off.
The problem we had is we have,say we've got 50 tasks that need
to get done, but we could alsoassign those to people.
After every mowing well, mowerneeds to get cleaned.
After every mowing well, mowerneeds to get cleaned.
(15:12):
Blades need to be eitherflipped or changed.
The rollers need to be cleanedout.
We need to go out and kind ofcheck the bearings real quick.
Go through the simple, gothrough, check the oils,
everything that gets done inservicing and prepping the mower
or swather for another round ofmowing.
That guy has to know what to do.
I'm not saying the job issimple, but it's prep mower.
Assign the task to somebody.
This helps you because nowyou've assigned it, now as a
(15:36):
manager, you're stillresponsible to go out and make
sure it gets done.
If you can get your guy to lookat it, he now knows what he has
to do.
He doesn't even have to botheryou to do it.
He says I know I need to dothis, go do it To us.
It doesn't matter when it getsdone, so long as it's done
before the next time we need it.
Project management there's a lotof really good ones.
There's a lot of reallyflexible project managements.
(15:56):
In fact, we had a challenge wetried several ag tech companies
to work, you know, to find anapplication to store because we
wanted to have harvest and yielddata for our fields.
So we wanted to know how manybales equals how many tons of
alfalfa or of hay, grass hay didwe get off of a field.
(16:17):
So then we can tie that back tohow much fertilizer did we put
on.
We can do our soil samples anddetermine fertilizer, determine
how much we took off, determinehow much what that yielded in
dollars.
We can actually track down tothe field of how many dollars we
took off, determine how muchwhat that yielded in dollars.
We can actually track down tothe field of how many dollars we
made off of each field, basedon yield tonnage and then
quality and those type of things, and we can store all of that
(16:39):
Ended up finding using a projectmanagement tool that also
allows us to store data anddisplay data in a way that is
very, very easy to use, and itwas simple.
I was able to create lists offields, lists of crops and then
(17:02):
tie all of this together, andthere's a couple of apps that
can do this pretty easily, andthey're you know of apps that
can do this pretty easily andthey're you know.
I say they're cheap, nothing'scheap, but they are inexpensive
for the value you can get out ofthem.
In looking at them, you candetermine, after you've made
your simple list of what are thechallenges you have.
Is it task management?
(17:22):
Is it data storage?
Is it, you know, all of thesethings?
Could it be done in aspreadsheet?
Yeah, probably some of our datamanagement could have been done
in a spreadsheet and could havebeen done on something like a,
you know, like a Googlespreadsheet.
But we wanted the ability tovisualize this data differently
because we wanted to be able tolook at, tie this back to other
(17:45):
systems that we use for sales,systems that we use for sales.
So we spent this much money infertilizer.
We got this much yield off thecrop.
That crop was graded at acertain grade which equaled we
had this many at this grade andthis grade, which equaled so
many dollars and then can tie itall back together was that
(18:05):
fertilizer investment.
Did it pay off?
If we make changes to ourfertilizer and nutrition plans,
do they pay off?
I mean, if you spend $100 on afertilizer plant and it only
gets you $50 in gain, well, youlost $50.
So we wanted to be able to tieall of this data back together
and we could not find an ag techcompany, something that tied it
(18:31):
all back together for us anddid it in an easy, quick way,
because one of the challengeswhen we're entering this data
we're generally coming out of afield, I'm in a tractor, pulling
my iPhone up and I'm typing inokay, we got 487 bales off of
this field.
So that ease of use is also afactor in here.
(18:51):
You know, just to kind of wrapup here real quick, don't you
know?
There's a lot of technology outthere and yes, it can be
daunting and yes, it can beintrusive, but as a business in
the business side of farming,data is important and being able
to manage that data and, moreimportantly, solve problems that
(19:12):
allow us to be more efficient.
That's what technology shouldbe used for.
I would encourage you to not beafraid of it If it can help you
grow your business.
Make a decision, make your listof challenges that you're having
scheduling, to-dos, projectmanagement, whatever that is and
then go search softwarepackages, services, technology
(19:37):
apps they call them software asa service, so they're almost
always subscription-based andfind one that you think works
for you or can be made to workfor you, because a lot of these
are customizable.
You can set all the tabs andtables and stuff works for you
or can be made to work for you,because a lot of these are
customizable.
You can set all the tabs andtables and stuff, take that and
use it for a year, make acommitment to use it for a year
(19:57):
and at the end of the year, makea decision Did it work for you
or did it not?
But having that data, I mean forus being able to look at an
individual field and saying,yeah, rent was this, fertilizer
was this seeding manpower toharvest it and haul it and stack
it was, and be able to tie allof that data in to how much did
(20:21):
we sell and did that field makeus money?
Did that fertilizer investmentmake us money?
Did that fertilizer investmentmake us money?
So, having all of that data ina place and using tools to do it
, not being afraid of the data,not being afraid of the
technology, can make yourbusiness easier to run.
If you're like me, the mostvaluable asset that I have is my
(20:44):
time, and if it can save metime and allow me to do a better
job, be more efficient time,and if it can save me time and
allow me to do a better job, bemore efficient, man, that's a
win.
So check out some apps andcheck out some things to run
your farm better.
Have a great day, good luck andGod bless.
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