Actually even small-time farmers today are more sophisticated than you might think. At my last software job, at a relatively small agro company, I learned that any piece of farm equipment newer than 25 or 30 years has a controller that can run it - say like varying the amount of water, fertilizer, pesticide etc that gets applied to basically every square meter of a field. They take samples and develop computer maps showing the levels of moisture, nitrogen, phosphorous, etc. Then software creates programs for the equipment, to tailor what happens at every spot. I was surprised by how technical modern farming is. A lot of the equipment drives itself around, there’s just a human sitting in the cab in case something goes wrong. But of course all this tech increases their costs and they still struggle to make a profit.
Actually even small-time farmers today are more sophisticated than you might think. At my last software job, at a relatively small agro company, I learned that any piece of farm equipment newer than 25 or 30 years has a controller that can run it - say like varying the amount of water, fertilizer, pesticide etc that gets applied to basically every square meter of a field. They take samples and develop computer maps showing the levels of moisture, nitrogen, phosphorous, etc. Then software creates programs for the equipment, to tailor what happens at every spot. I was surprised by how technical modern farming is. A lot of the equipment drives itself around, there’s just a human sitting in the cab in case something goes wrong. But of course all this tech increases their costs and they still struggle to make a profit.