year’s project teams are expanding existing data tools to put critical farm management information at growers’ fingertips. A team from Oregon State University is expanding something called the Oregon Pest Monitoring Network (OPMN). (See page 65.) Launched in 2021, the OPMN is a geographic information system-based digital dashboard that provides real-time data about agricultural pests. Regional monitoring and reporting help farmers make informed decisions based on pest activity. If pesticides are needed, they can be applied in a more targeted way— which reduces costs and is better for the environment and worker health. The Oregon team is making the OPMN more robust by adding commodities, and new technology features—including notifications, historical trends, data interpretation, and phenological forecasting. The team also is training farmers to use the dashboard. “Empowering farmers with technology means more than just providing tools,” says team co-lead Jessica Green, se-
nior faculty research assistant at Oregon State Extension. “It’s about equipping them with the skills to use those tools effectively, so we’re focusing on providing training in a variety of formats and making the tool user-friendly.” A team from Oklahoma State University is leveraging data in a different way to help farmers make more informed deci- sions, developing an AI financial tool to help them with enter- prise budgeting. (See page 64.) This BudgetBot will use plain English interactions and includes important features such as connection to commodity price and production data. “Budgeting can be overwhelming for some farmers—espe- cially if they’re too small to afford an accountant or a busi- ness manager,” says Karly Black, an Extension professional from University of Nebraska-Lincoln who is mentoring the Oklahoma team. “The bot will allow them to ask a few questions without needing to understand the nitty gritty of enterprise budgeting, and they’ll still get reliable numbers.”
Four projects aim to make agricultural technology adoption easier and less expensive FARMING’S FUTURE
Precision technology in agriculture is not new. Over the last several decades, we’ve seen the development of sensors that determine soil nutrient and moisture levels, smart weeders that cut the thistle but spare the corn, and self-driving tractor prototypes, to name a few.
Project leaders are eager to help farmers and other agricultur- al-sector workers embrace the power of emerging technologies.
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B ut U.S. farmers have sometimes been slow to incor- porate emerging technologies, even though in the long run these tools can increase profits and lower overhead expenses. According to a recent report from the General Accounting Office, just one in four farms uses pre- cision tech, with the most adopters in northern states such as the Dakotas and Nebraska and the fewest in southern states such as Texas, South Carolina, and Georgia. The biggest barriers are usually cost (agricultural tech often requires up-front capital that growers may not have), lack of technical expertise, and resistance to change. With these benefits and barriers in mind, four of the 2023–2024 New Technologies in Ag Extension (NTAE) grant projects are focused on increasing the use of precision technology on farms, from small family operations to large ornamental nurseries. The teams are using a variety of strat-
egies, including providing access to valuable pest outbreak data, developing an artificial intelligence (AI) tool for farm budgets, creating a drone operation training handbook, and demonstrating how drones can protect human, crop, and environmental health. The results of these projects will be low-cost or free, accessible resources in a space that can often feel out of reach for many farmers. This work also demonstrates Cooperative Extension’s vital role in support- ing the development and adoption of technology in the agricultural sector, empowering farmers, and contributing to a more sustainable and productive food system. DATA-DRIVEN DECISIONS Farmers need more than just equipment, seeds, feed, and livestock to run their operations. They need data—about everything from market prices to weather. Two of this
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2023-2024 YEARBOOK | EXTENSION FOUNDATION/NTAE
EXTENSION FOUNDATION/NTAE | 2023-2024 YEARBOOK
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