Technology Is A Return On Investment – Agweb Powered by Farm Journal

Create a long-term strategy that pays

In the quest to grow the most profitable crop, technology tools can offer a double-edged benefit solving problems and helping to measure the gains made.

A Farm Journal study shows most farmers (66%) expect new technology to pay for itself in three years, and 22% expect payback in the first year.

A technology may take a few years to pay off, but we want to see some benefits right away, says Brian Scott, a farmer from Delphi, Ind.

Before adopting a new technology, assess your expectations and how youll track its impact on your farm. Define the outcomes of using the technology so you can measure its success and return on the investment.

As simple as it sounds, you cant improve what you dont measure. Thats particularly true with on-farm technologies, says Shay Foulk, an Illinois farmer and farm business consultant with Ag View Solutions. As such, its important to find the metrics most important to you. He highlights four ways to measure success with technology:

We are all guilty of wanting to see a return quickly, but we need to step back and think about how itll impact us long-term, Foulk says. Decisions should be mapped out and numbers put to them.

On one end of the spectrum, variable-rate and auto-swath technologies can provide a fast recovery of the investments made.

On average, its 4% on some of those technologies savings to the farmer in terms of inputs used, but we see easily 7% to 10%, and depending on the field size and shape it can be in the 30% savings, as far as inputs, says John Fulton, precision agriculture specialist for Ohio State University Extension.

Fulton also says there is value in how technology can record and track agronomic performance.

Technology can be used to verify accurate competition of field operations and input placement, he says. Though not measurable in dollars, theres value in knowing crop and marketing plans are on track versus not knowing.

Longer-term analysis aided by technology and data collection can illuminate how investments in concepts such as soil health have added to the bottom line.

Just because you are not seeing immediate payback, doesnt mean you wont see future benefits, Foulk says. For example, many people who start doing strip-till or using cover crops wont stick with it beyond three years if they dont see the benefits.

Foulk says some technologies can uncover opportunities that may be lost by the time you are in the combine.

With remote sensing, theres value in seeing the in-season progress, and when you can correlate that back to yield, it will tell you something, he says. For example, we have a field that was planted half on April 9 and half on April 11. All season theres been tremendous difference in aerial imagery, so we cant wait to see if theres a difference on the yield map.

When evaluating technology advantages, determine how it can also improve your work-life balance.

If you are running a profitable farming operation, its OK if a technology has a negative ROI if it improves your quality of life, he says. Its how you define success and it doesnt have to always be about money.

Illinois farmer and farm business consultant Shay Foulk gives these insights on how every farm can find its best path forward with maximizing technology.

Hear from Brian Scott on how he uses technology to improve his on-farm conservation efforts.

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Technology Is A Return On Investment - Agweb Powered by Farm Journal