CFI dcast

CFI dcast: Data Down on the Farm

Sid Gorham, Chandra Krintz, and Thibaut Scholasch

Posted November 24, 2015

 

Farmers are among the best hackers in the business. They can fix anything, and are endlessly tweaking their approach to a business that is up against the strongest force on the planet: nature.

As adopters of technology, the agriculture industry is both forward-thinking and, at the same time, hard to convince to make a change. For good reason — you can’t A/B-test an almond orchard. You get one shot a year to grow a crop and make a profit. So whatever technology makes its way into the fields had better work.

U.C. Santa Barbara computer science professor Chandra Krintz, Granular CEO and co-founder Sid Gorham, and Fruition Sciences co-founder Thibaut Scholasch join this segment of the CFI Podcast to discuss technologies working down on the farm. Including how sensors monitoring soil elements, water flow in plants, and fertilizer schedules are yielding fruitful data. Given the high stakes — a planet in the midst of climate change — what we can all learn from how technology is accepted and implemented in the agriculture industry?