With 20,000 acres, Indiana farmer Kip Tom “harvests the staples of modern agriculture: seed corn, feed corn, soybeans and data,” says the New York Times. “I’m hooked on a drug of information and data,” Tom tells the newspaper, which looks at the marriage of data sensors, GPS tracking and variable-rate applicators. The expensive technology is easier to afford for big farmers than small, says the Times, which quotes a USDA economist as saying, “We’re seeing a big uptick in the productivity of larger farms.”
The technology seems easily suited for monocultural farming of crops such as corn and soybeans rather than the waning model of a diverse mix of crops in the view of skeptics, says the story. “But there is also the promise that technology can make farming far easier,” says the Times, describing use of equipment to check soil fertility or scout for pest damage. Says the Times, “He (Tom) still remembers begging for loans at 21 percent interest during the 1980s farm crisis. He credits his survival and growth to using technology, and figures it is how he will prosper now that corn is at $4 a bushel, about half the level it was two years ago.”
The Web site for Tom Farms, which grows corn and soybeans as well as seed corn for Monsanto, lists operations in Indiana and Argentina. It is available here.