When discussing new ways of doing things in the agriculture industry, an often-stated axiom goes something like this: “That’s not the way my granddaddy (or daddy) did it.” Sometimes this statement contains a lot of wisdom. However, this wisdom is often taken out of context when we are considering new technology being developed and applied to agriculture.
Much of this new technology was not developed specifically for agriculture, but it has the potential to benefit agricultural producers by finding solutions to complex issues. Technology is increasing accuracy, precision and reliability of information. This saves time and money, increases productivity, simplifies tasks, and assists with decision-making for producers, consultants, researchers, managers and others who comprise the agriculture industry.
There will always be things that technology alone cannot do, and not every technology will be useful. However, technology will be increasingly called upon to improve agricultural productivity and much of it must add value to the producer if it is to be adopted.
This issue of Noble News and Views covers some of the technology that we are utilizing or evaluating for application with the focus on land stewardship in beef cattle production for producer profitability.
Technological advancements in this issue will cover measuring forage and livestock production, evaluating wildlife habitat, improving drought tolerance in plants, using GIS to help producers maximize their return on investment, gaining a better understanding of how different species of animals interact with each other on shared landscapes, and more.
