Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Farmers

Video Game Pro? Why Not Join Our Farm: Farmers Seek New Skills to Attract Workers

It’s no secret that farmers face a significant labor crunch, one that’s expected to worsen over the next few years.

One major reason is farmers’ heavy reliance on migrant labor. Unfortunately, there may be far fewer workers available from this vital labor pool in the coming years. Threats of mass deportations under the Trump administration have left many in the agriculture and food industries concerned about the potential impacts on their partners and the broader food supply chain.

“Our ability to feed ourselves as a country is completely jeopardized if you do see the mass deportations,” said Rick Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association, in a recent interview.

Compounding this issue is the reality that the average farmer is getting up there in years, with the current average age being 58. Many of these farmers have no succession plan, as younger generations from farm families often show little interest in taking over the family business. As a result, many farms currently producing food may be sold off to developers within the next decade.

But what if new technology could make farming jobs more attractive? According to Tim Bucher, CEO of Agtonomy, one way to address the labor shortage is to reframe farming jobs to appeal to workers with skills gained from unexpected areas, such as video games.

At last week’s CES Ag Tech Summit, hosted by The Spoon, Bucher shared the story of one of Agtonomy’s farming partners who faced a crippling labor shortage. Traditional job postings for tractor drivers had failed to attract candidates, so the partner took a bold step: they adjusted the job description to emphasize “video game experience” for the role of an “AgTech Operator.” The results were remarkable.

“The resume flow exploded,” said Bucher. “They hired ag tech operators who had never set foot in a tractor but were able to operate them and accomplish incredible work.”

This move to leverage new skills goes beyond farming. Some startups are creating platforms specifically optimized for integrating video games and virtual reality expertise. For example, Carbon Origins, a company The Spoon covered at CES three years ago, developed a system that uses virtual reality to operate a bulldozer called “Bobby.” These innovations highlight how skills traditionally seen as unrelated to agriculture or construction are now becoming valuable assets in reimagining labor-intensive industries.

AI and Data Are the New Tractor

In addition to using technology to attract new workers, the technology itself—such as AI and automation—may ultimately be the key to saving many farms that operate on razor-thin margins and struggle to survive in the face of accelerating climate change. During the CES panel, participants highlighted how farmers are leveraging autonomous equipment, precision agriculture tools, and AI-enabled decision-making platforms to better manage their operations.

Jacqueline Heard, CEO of Enko, likened the transformative impact of AI and data-driven tools to that of the tractor, which revolutionized agriculture over the past two centuries.

“If you think about any industrial revolution, that’s what it was—a tractor and autonomy causing this incredible acceleration and making what farmers do easier,” said Heard. “The same goes for AI. Data is the new tractor. I think AI will accelerate just about everything we do, from creating better inputs to solving the massive optimization challenges farmers face on-farm and driving profitability.”

You can watch the entire session below.

AI or Die? Why Farms Must Embrace the AI Revolution to Survive

Farmer Peer-to-Peer Network Wefarm Scores $5 Million Funding Boost

What does a smallholder farmer in Kenya do when they want to know the best way to control weeds in their coffee crop? If they use Wefarm, all they have to do is shoot off a text.

Wefarm, the world’s largest farmer-to-farmer digital network, announced on Tuesday that it had raised $5 million in seed funding. The round was led by the Silicon Valley-based True Ventures, who were joined by WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg, Blue Bottle Coffee CEO Bryan Meehan, and Skype founder Niklas Zennström. The Norrsken Foundation, LocalGlobe and Accelerated Digital Ventures (ADV) also participated.

Wefarm is aimed at the more than 500 million smallholder farmers in the world. These small scale farmers produce over 70 percent of the world’s food and spend over $400 billion on farm inputs and other services, annually—but many of them struggle to gain access to agricultural education, inputs, such as fertilizer, and traditional markets.

Because of these challenges, many small scale farmers come up with innovative, low-tech solutions to improve their yield. And with Wefarm, they can share their know-how with other farmers who might be struggling with the same obstacles, without leaving their farm. And it’s all available at no cost to the farmers.

Their recent funding indicates a growing interest in supporting and educating smallholder farmers, whose role will become all the more critical (and difficult) thanks to a growing world population and the threat of climate change.

What’s makes Wefarm’s 660,000-strong peer-to-peer network so special is its ability to connect farmers via the internet, even if they themselves don’t have access to the internet. Which means that a farmer in Kenya can ask a question about irrigation methods which might be answered by farmers in Uganda and Tanzania—even if none of them have access to wifi.

To get around the internet hurdle, Wefarm turns to SMS to exchange information. According to their website, while many smallholder farmers don’t have internet, over 90% of them have access to mobile phones. Wefarm decided to capitalize on that to make an information sharing network that’s facilitated by text messages. So if farmers run into a problem about the right spacing for their beans or how to feed their cattle to optimize milk production, they can just shoot off a (free) SMS to the local Wefarm number. Their question is instantly posted online, and crowdsourced responses are sent back to their mobile phone. Wefarm also offers translation services for their SMS’s, so farmers can ask questions and receive answers in their own languages.

Wefarm connects farmers, even those without access to the internet. 

Wefarm’s platform is open for discussion on any aspect of agriculture, which is obviously a pretty far-reaching subject. In addition to seeking advice on crops, water, and disease prevention, farmers also use this service to compare notes on input costs. That way, they know the right price to pay and won’t get ripped off. Some also use Wefarm as a platform to sell and buy their crops, or just get advice about how to find the right marketplace for their goods.

Unlike many ag-focused startups that take the top-down approach by starting with tech and trying to pitch it to farmers, Wefarm uses a bottom-up model. They start with the farmers, and then connect them with simple technology. Really, all it’s offering is a bare-bones way for farmers to communicate; a sort of chat room which can operate without the internet. It’s sort of like a more low-tech, freestyle version of the online analytics-sharing platform Farmers Network, only Wefarm is free and covers a much wider range of topics.

As of now, Wefarm is operating in Kenya and Uganda, with plans to expand into Eastern and Sub-Saharan Africa. With a user retention rate of 90%, it seems that there is an actual need for this type of peer-to-peer information resource among farmers.

With their latest injection of funding, they hope to develop a set of new features for their farmer network. So far, they’ve only given details on one: Project Farmlog. This is a “smart farming assistant” that uses machine learning to give farmers crop and livestock support based on their questions. Wefarm has said that Project Farmlog will be interactive, though it doesn’t give concrete details on how it will actually help support farmers any more than their current services. It does promise, however, that it will work for anyone with a mobile phone.

And it’s from that simplicity where Wefarm derives it’s power and value. As more people join the service, more knowledge is immediately available. Which means that as Wefarm grows, so too will the crops across even more farms.