PODCAST: Helping farmers see ROI from their data

Modern farming is ripe with data, especially among farmers who are fully embracing technology in their operations. From autonomous robots that collect agronomic information about fields to precision instruments that measure a dairy cow’s production, volumes of information are pouring into farm management systems.

In this week’s episode of Agbioscience, the podcast presented by AgriNovus Indiana, they explain why data is the focus of the 2022 Producer-Led Innovation Challenge.

“This idea of producers themselves collecting a lot of data…but at the end of the day, how can they, that individual farmer, really capitalize on that data,” said AgriNovus Indiana Chief Executive Officer Mitch Frazier and podcast host.

Now in its third year, this year’s challenge tasks innovators with optimizing existing on-farm data to create a farmer-focused platform that will increase data accuracy and reliability to impact speed and cost of capital from lenders.

“So how do we look at those challenges that exist? And how do we look at what’s out there today and bring creative new approaches,” said Ben Forsythe, Sustainability and Value Creation Director for the Indiana Soybean Alliance and Indiana Corn Marketing Council.

The ISA and ICMC are partnering with AgriNovus on this year’s challenge. The grain-grower groups constantly look for value creation and innovation for Hoosier farmers.

Frazier says farming operations collect thousands of datapoints using farm management systems, financial software, tax statements and complex spreadsheets.

“How do we how do we look at all of this and bring information together to really drive some ROI back to producers in ways that maybe we haven’t thought of before,” questioned Forsythe.

The deadline to enter a team in the challenge is September 22. The entries must be submitted by November 4. The winning team will be announced December 9.

The winning team receives $25K to help commercialize their solution. Click here to learn more about the Producer-Led Innovation Challenge.

The full podcast will drop on Monday morning. To listen to the new or past episodes, click here.