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Manitoba farmers explore the value of digital farming

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This article was published 11/03/2024 (902 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In recent years, Manitoba farmers have seen a wide range of changes, whether that be due to increasing challenges with weather, changing landscapes, economic uncertainties or managing knowledge transfer between generations of farmers. One of the biggest, and arguably most impactful, changes in modern farming has been in the adoption of digital ag technology and use of on-farm data. With precision farming tools, farmers are now able to make better, more informed decisions to obtain the best crop output and yield through data-driven insights.

With digital platforms, farmers can use on-farm, real-time data to make decisions easier, earlier, and more confidently. Data utilized in tools like this give farmers a deeper understanding of their fields so they can make more informed operating decisions to optimize yields, maximize efficiency and reduce risk.

Crystal City Manitoba farm dealer, Jack Carels embraced FieldView^TM , the flagship digital farming product from Bayer, to help farms he works with to better capture and utilize data, and make more informed recommendations with tools like seeding maps and spray layers. This data has been especially useful for trials and looking back at the end of the season. “FieldView has made trial data capture so much easier, whether they are on purpose or not,” said Carels. “At harvest, when everything’s going nuts, it’s too hard to be everywhere at once. I’ve found that there’s so much analytics to be done after the fact and finding out what that mistake cost or maybe in some cases actually benefitted.”

Riley Anderson, a farmer from Morris Manitoba has also found using FieldView for trials to be valuable in determining which product might enable better ROI. “One cool thing we did is demoed about four high-speed disks and mapped it with FieldView”, said Anderson. “I’m hoping to see a difference between them and see which one agronomically makes me more money, and that’s something that isn’t really talked about too much.”

Today, there are many tools’ farmers can use for the numerous aspects of farming operations. No one entity is equipped to solve every challenge, which is why offering integrated partnerships and platforms provide a greater value to farmers with more complete solutions and services, to enable participation beyond the farm gate. With FieldView’s enhanced connectivity between a variety of partners and platforms such as Combyne for crop marketing management, and FCC’s AgExpert Field and Precision Planting, data is synchronized and easily accessible through one platform.

“What I like about FieldView is it’s just so user-friendly” said Carels, “When I have to train another employee on how to use FieldView, it is just so easy for them to pick it up quickly.” While adopting new tools and learning technology can seem like an adjustment, the value and impact it makes in operations is priceless.

Beyond the opportunities available within the tool, FieldView also delivers high value to farms with boots-on-the ground service. FieldView reps are like another farm hand, available to help farmers get the most out of their subscription; whether that be installing hardware / software, creating and running scripts, or updating and analyzing farm data.

For those interested in learning more about digital farming technology and how it can add value to farmers for decision-making, visit ClimateFieldView.ca.