The Coolest Profession on Earth – Next Generation Agriculture
Personally, I think that Thomas Frey, arguably, the best futurist alive today. Please read his refreshing and insightful post on 'Next Generation Farming.'
'When people think of farming, they typically conjure up images of a tractor
cresting a hill billowing large plumes of exhaust into the air. However, recent
news of a system for channeling tractor exhaust into the dirt, so carbon fumes
are plowed into the soil eliminating the need for fertilizer, has been gaining
significant attention. The win-win arrangement of turning a known pollutant into
a soil enriching additive, combined with the prospects for significantly lower
operating costs from the elimination of fertilizer has many farmers buzzing. The
technique, developed by Canadian, Gary Lewis of Bio Agtive, is currently in
trials at 100 farms around the world.
Stories such as this are happening with ever greater frequency as the slow
process of farming adapts to the fast world of communications, and ideas that
used to take years to ferment, now begin to snowball within days, even hours.
The stage is being set for an unprecedented new generation of farming driven by
ever greater levels of precision, relevancy, and control, the likes of which
will transition the once primitive profession, typified by long grueling hours
in the sun, into a hotbed for techno-geek agrarians packing handhelds and data
readers trained to monitor far more than markets, yields, costs, and moisture
content.
As with all industries, there are many micro-forces driving the changes
ahead. But viewing them through the lens of these three progressing trend lines
helps us grasp the interwoven nature of these sometimes competing drivers.'
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