Visitors to the Commodity Classic Trade Show had an opportunity to listen to a panel assembled by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). The Agricultural Executive Panel: The Infrastructure for New Technology is part of the AEM’s Infrastructure Vision 2050 Initiative, recognizing the gap between broadband infrastructure and production agriculture. The group included Nebraska corn and soybean grower Brandon Hunnicut, who said connectivity is a huge challenge for many farmers.
“There’s so much communication going back and forth very quickly that we need to make sure that all the producers have the ability to make the same decisions in a rapid amount of time that everybody else does,” said Hunnicut.
Panelists agreed that broadband availability will be even more key in the future, as autonomous equipment will require full-time, consistent connectivity. Even now, while 70 percent of corn and soybean acres have a yield monitor collecting data during harvest, only 40 percent of that data gets transmitted for analysis. That’s largely due to a lack of connectivity on those farms, according to Darryl Matthews with Trimble Agriculture. Other panel participants included moderator Bill Hurley, AGCO Corporation; Sara Wyant, Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.; and Dan Danford, Case IH.
Listen to the AEM Agricultural Executive Panel discussion here: AEM Agricultural Executive Panel
2018 Commodity Classic Photo Album
