Going Beyond ROI with Precision Ag

When farmers talk about return on investment (ROI), it’s generally about dollars and cents — will profits equal or outweigh the investment? When looking into adopting precision ag, it can be challenging to measure every improvement down to the last cent. But ROI is more than dollars and cents. It’s important to look beyond monetary gains to understand how your investments add value (experiential, functional, etc.) to your life and your business.

For example, the annual subscription cost of a premium correction service like Trimble’s CenterPoint RTX is often one of the lowest costs yet provides the highest impact for your farm. These impacts can be measured both in ROI — less materials used in the field due to precision application — and value on investment (VOI) — less time in the field, more time to go to a baseball game.

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Another example is cell phone expenses. On large farms, there are often 5-10 cell phone plans all being paid out by the farm owner. It’s difficult to show the monetary return on that investment, but it’s highly unlikely you would consider reducing hard costs in exchange for the greater efficiency and enhanced quality of life (functional and psychological value) that comes with cell phones.

Time Is Money and Increased Quality of Life

Time gained is a key advantage when investing in precision ag products and services. Case in point: the majority of farmers are self-employed, which can make calculating the monetary “value” of their time a challenge. If your RTK base station goes down, you might spend a half day fixing it. This didn’t incur monetary costs, but it did take time away from accomplishing other things on the farm or out in your community. In this case, the value of your time has cost you greatly.

During that time, you could’ve harvested half a field or sprayed an entire field. Instead, you’re spending another day doing that task and potentially pushing out your planting or harvesting schedule, among other things you could have done with that time spent on fixing the base station. In the case of corporate farmers, your time is equally valuable. You may still get paid regardless of what you are doing to fill your workday, but at what expense to you and your employer? If you must spend part of your day fixing a base station, you have to put off other tasks and possibly stay late to get them done instead of heading home to dinner with family or friends.

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Another example of VOI is seen in solutions like auto guidance. With this technology, you are freed up to do other things like check your monitor to see that your sprayer or other implement is working correctly or the hundreds of other things that need to be done throughout the day. In many instances, it’s easier to continue doing things the way they’ve always been done, often passed down from previous generations. While that is understandable, precision ag solutions have come a long way since the inception of the concept in the early 1980s and that includes correction services, which have become much more sophisticated and can deliver a significantly greater value into everyday farming practices. Recently, one farmer we spoke with said installing autosteer with corrections gave him the opportunity to taste his sandwich for the first time in 20 years, showcasing how much precision farming solutions can offload mundane tasks that take up valuable time.

Precision farming also allows you not only to maximize your time, but also to maximize weather windows. For instance, if rain or frost is coming and the need quickly arises to harvest in a short amount of time, precision farming gives you the ability to work around the clock — minimizing downtime and making a substantial difference in delivering maximum yield. Trimble recently heard from a farm owner who completely changed their fleet methodology with the help of precision ag. A Saskatchewan farm ran four big combines with front tracks and 40-foot headers. When even more rain was coming (on already saturated soil), they strategically shifted to harvesting 24 hours a day for four days straight. Stopping only for fuel and essential repairs, Trimble AutoPilot guidance systems enabled them to run continuous eight-hour shifts and easily rotated people as no single worker needed to know the specifics of the fields the entire time.

Delivering Peace of Mind

A traditional farming mindset is that you need to be in the driver’s seat, literally, at all times because you know every detail about your fields and have specific ways in which you want to farm those fields. With precision ag technology like automated steering and correction service, there’s no need for you to always be in the cab, as the guidance system does most of the work for the driver. Driving now becomes a job for hired labor and gives you peace of mind that the job is getting done properly. This has great potential to help ease the skilled farming labor shortage worldwide, and also helps you to more easily train younger generations to eventually take over the farm. In addition, it’s helpful for workers that may have a language barrier as they are able to easily transition to work without learning a new skill or language.

When you use the right precision ag solutions for your farm, you can simplify workflow to gain better yields, increased efficiencies, reduced environmental impact, and better quality of life. It’s important when looking at any investment to take into consideration what you’re getting back from it monetarily, but it’s equally as important to see what you might get back from it in other facets of life. And it’s not just about a fancy cruise control — it’s about finding an innovation partner that’s there to simplify your life. Download the Ultimate Guide to Precision Ag here to learn more about how you can benefit from both ROI and VOI.

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