Why Good Is Good Enough When It Comes to New Ag Tech
New agricultural technology can be absolutely fascinating, but I’m really interested in it because 1) It can help growers be more profitable, and 2) I like to fool around with cool new stuff. Not very professional, No. 2, I know, but frankly it’s easier to find cool new stuff than it is to find new technology that will obviously help growers become more profitable, writes David Eddy at Growing Produce.
Numerous fruit growers I talk to lament the fact that a lot of agricultural technology is developed for Midwest program crop growers and not for specialty crop growers. I get it. There’s plenty more acreage of those crops, and new product developers stand to make a lot more money. Of course, revenue from an acre of almonds or strawberries would dwarf that of corn or soybeans, but that’s a topic for another day.
Lately though, I’ve been hearing another associated complaint about such products: They’re not field ready. It is extraordinarily difficult to implement a lot of new technology in agriculture because the pressure of execution outdoors is vexing.
This is easily understandable because scientists have a heavy lab-based orientation. However, the goals sought in the laboratory might be widely different — often much loftier — than what would be completely acceptable to growers grasping for answers. As one grower put it so eloquently: Don’t make perfect be the enemy of the good.
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