I have had the privilege of being in the “Precision Ag business” for over 20 years now. A lot has changed since I started, but some fundamental issues still plague our ability to make it easier for users to leverage the various technologies that are available: having systems “talk to each other” technically referred to as “interoperability” is a key challenge. This issue is apparent from a recent survey conducted by AgGateway, a non-profit industry consortium that is focused on promoting and enabling the industry’s transition to digital agriculture with a goal of maximizing efficiency and productivity (www.aggateway.org). As an industry our goal is to make these technologies relevant to a large cross section of growers, so in the future we don’t refer to “Precision Agriculture” instead we just say “this is how you do Agriculture.”
Mark Stelford
Mark Stelford, General Manager, joined PCS in 2013 from John Deere’s Intelligent Solutions Group. His work spans over 20 years in precision ag, starting with what became one of the first commercially available yield monitoring systems. Looking at Mark’s height, you would think he had a history of a playing volleyball. However, much to his wife’s disbelief – he was actually a member of a “nerdy chess team”.