Will Fulwider 0:00
You know, just kind of filler stuff. But yeah, I mean, feel free to feel free to jump back jump ahead or be like, Oh, can we put a pin in this? Come back to it later because I can do that. Yeah, pretty pretty easily. That’s great. Yeah.

Jim Eckberg 0:15
And I appreciate you recording. Having said all that too

Will Fulwider 0:19
that one, the beginning. This is all it’s all going to be a very meta one. Like we’re getting up there

Will Fulwider 0:36
Welcome to Field Notes. My name is Will Fulwider. I’m joined by my co host, Michael Geissinger. We are two Regional Crops Educators with UW Madison Extension in Wisconsin. Combining our skills, knowledge and experience to help farmers and agronomists develop research based solutions to issues facing agriculture in Wisconsin.

Will Fulwider 1:05
Today, we’re talking about applications for digital agriculture on the landscape. We’re joined by Doctors Emily Bick, Extension funded faculty and field and forage crop entomology at UW Madison. And Jim Eckberg, a scientist at General Mills. We’re really excited to have these guests sharing their expertise with us today. Emily and Jim, thanks for coming on today. If you could just take a couple minutes to introduce yourselves, what you do, and your roles and how that pertains to whatever digital agriculture is.

Emily Bick 1:32
Awesome. Well, Will thanks so much for having us on the podcast today. I’m Emily Bick, I’m the new faculty member in entomology as Will just mentioned, I’m a fast talking New Yorker. So I’ll try to slow it down for this conversation. I really focus in precision pest ecology. So how do we time and space interventions and because I study insects, I focus exclusively on bugs. And my role here is specifically for field and forge, but I’m pretty new to this role I started about six months ago. So I’m excited to see how we can maybe collaborate and keep this conversation going.

Jim Eckberg 2:14
It’s great to be on with you both today. I’m Jim Eckberg, a agroecologist and scientists at General Mills. In my role at General Mills, I work to support our company in reaching our ambitious goals of reducing our greenhouse gas footprint by 30% by 2030, and advancing regenerative agriculture, on a million acres by 2030. I work closely with farmers, adoption of new technologies and tracking the impact that we can have in advancing sustainability. And we work on big challenges such as restoring biodiversity, improving water quality, and improving soil health. So it’s great to be on with you.

Will Fulwider 2:54
Thanks for being here. So my question and you know, excuse me maybe as a luddite. Is I have no idea what digital agriculture is. And so if you could help to kind of clarify what it is and how do you work with it in your respective roles?

Jim Eckberg 3:11
It’s the integration of digital technology into our agricultural systems to better manage production, to improve how we manage our natural resources, limited natural resources, like water, and biodiversity and soil. And it’s really for farmers to improve their operations. How can they better manage their businesses? All of that together. At General Mills, we are a food company that depends on a healthy resilient food system to secure the ingredients that support some of our best brands, our favorite brands that people know and love, like Cheerios and Yoplait and Haagen-Dazs. I work specifically on our Force for Good initiative, which is a broader goal at General Mills to leverage our scale and our investment to support farmers in the adoption of regenerative agricultural principles. As a scientist, my role is to work with other scientists, like Dr. Bick, on how we measure and track the impact of our programs to taking on these big challenges. We know we have lots of big issues to solve in agriculture, like depleted soils, and loss of biodiversity, as well as a depressed economics which are challenging. We believe that supporting farmers in the adoption of regenerative agriculture, supporting them in the adoption of things like digital technology, are ways that we can jointly work to solve these big challenges.

Emily Bick 4:37
I focus more on digital entomology, which I view as a subset of digital agriculture. So what I really think about is models which are these degree day models that everyone uses to track when pests are supposed to show up. I think about sensors. So how do we better monitor insects around the field? How do we better sample, how do we take some of that labor out? Actually come up with a more accurate answer. When I think about how do we interpret all of these signals, and oftentimes, it’s through machine learning, which is a great buzzword, but really comes down to it as a whole set of equations that get fit to the data streams that we see from these sensors from these models, and better interpret that information. So when I see a set of data, if I see a new sensor, I really try to figure out where is it useful? What are the biases that it would bring into the system, in the hopes that better data would actually end up meeting better decision making? How do we more accurately and with less labor track insects immigrating into the field? And that’s one of the studies that I conducted on pollen beetles when I was in Denmark, as well as in the UK. How do we see populations grow and move and change over time? And how do we better respond to those, and it’s really the incorporation of these brand new technologies that we can more precisely manage, in my case, the pests, but agriculture as a whole.

Will Fulwider 6:08
So to me, it sounds like the key, the crux, to kind of understanding what digital agriculture is, is through the conduit more or less of applied technology, like through sensors, and like Emily, you were saying and sensors that use to track pests? And so for Jim, for you, like, is data collection is it mostly through sensors, is it through already existing technologies that farmers have on their operations, that you’re able to pull that data together to give them kind of a better idea as to how their practices are affecting, you know, soil quality or water quality, kind of what you’re mentioning?

Jim Eckberg 6:45
Yeah, we work across a lot of different types of data collection, we start with the classic methods of collecting data, like soil cores, and insect samples. And even manure samples, and in dairy, where manure is a big source of emissions. And where we see digital technology coming in is how do we bring this data to the next level? How do we expand the amount of data that we’re able to collect? How do we make it easier? How do we bring down the cost? Because as many know, the cost of taking soil samples is really high. How do we speed up the time between when you take a sample, and when you have the insight from that sample, digital technology is poised to really shrink and almost eliminate that time and bring more real time analytics into the hands of farmers. So they can manage their operations with more and new insight. That’s where we see digital technology, not reinventing the wheel, but really advancing the overall system.

Emily Bick 7:56
And I would just add that the tech is already there. All of this technology has been developed, but not necessarily for us, not necessarily for the application of agriculture. So it’s people like Jim’s job, and people like my job to bring that tech and find the right solution for the right problems that you’re all facing.

Will Fulwider 8:18
And so when you talk about tech, you know, this is I’m trying to wrestle with this idea and see how does it apply onto the farmers that I work with, you know, in Dane and Dodge counties, and the rest of county educators, Extension educators working with across the state is, you know, how does this tech apply to those farmers? How does how does a farmer get involved? And I’m kind of skipping ahead here, maybe a little bit. But you know, how does that how does that affect the kind of on the ground farmer.

Jim Eckberg 8:49
Yes, farmers, as they think about how digital technology should come into their operation, should first start by thinking about what are some of the greatest challenges that they have to their farm? They should think about their problem first, not about the solution, because as Dr. Bick was saying, digital technology can be a solution to many of these problems, but we don’t want them to be a solution in search of a problem. And that’s why we start with the farmers at General Mills first to ask them, what are some of their greatest needs, and some of the greatest challenges to managing a farm that is not only profitable, but can support more about adversity and can have lower emissions. And so asking the farmer, what is your biggest challenges that you have on your farm? For example, is it pests and how do you manage those pests on the farm? Do you manage them by spraying on a calendar schedule? You know, or what information do you use? And we look at digital technologies being an unlock to improving our ability to manage some of these longest standing issues and agriculture is nothing new in some ways, we’ve had issues of pests, with depleted solar resources, animal welfare, these are long standing issues. And we look to digital technology to help those farmers start managing those issues in new ways. And we look at as a company as a way to unlock some of the data that can be available to track and report on the impacts. And as I’m talking about tracking reporting, I want to say, you know, making sure digital technology space, we have to be so careful about data security and privacy. It can’t be a conduit, for overstepping in terms of data privacy, and an individual privacy. We think if done right, digital technology can deliver on a whole host of major challenges while protecting farms and supporting farm animals.

Emily Bick 11:00
And I would just add, specifically what I’m looking at, and what I’ve partnered and done experiments with is, what’s the distribution, the spatial distribution of insects in a field so that we can more precisely manage that variation? Because if we know where the insects are, we can better target them. If we know more precisely, when insects are immigrating into into a field, into a region, into a state, into a system, all of a sudden, we can much better time, our interventions, such as pesticides, or biological control agent releases, and by having that timing dialed in a little bit, then all of a sudden, your results are a lot stronger, your solutions are a lot more efficacious. I would add in that we don’t really know yet what technology is going to rise to the top, right, there are all sorts of these LiDAR, radar, optical, video camera, video camera on sticky car traps, audio sensors, there’s a whole range of these, they’re drones that are looking at the plant health, this is all in the field of insect science, because that’s where that’s what I focus on. And we’re just not sure what the right solution is yet, which is an exciting time. But I can imagine could be fairly frustrating for you, since we don’t yet have the answer.

Will Fulwider 12:20
Right. And so for me, you know, in talking with Emily, in the past, it seems like an obvious solution for kind of the pest side of things, you know, it’s being able to sense living things in the such. But I’m curious about other examples as well, of the application here, Jim, you mentioned on soils or whatever. And so I wonder if you can give an example for people to kind of have is like a kernel of okay, this is it applied in practice?

Jim Eckberg 12:46
Yeah, I would like to point us to the revolution in technology around precision agriculture. In the last several decades, we have seen farmers embrace technology to precisely apply, when, where, how much, and what type of fertilizers, you know, to actually be able to reduce fertilizers and use them better to support production on their farm. And so this is not a foreign concept is digital agriculture to the agricultural community. We’ve been working on this for years.

Will Fulwider 13:23
And so, as we kind of, there’s this ramping up of, you know, existing technologies to that application of providing that information to change practices. What are the obstacles that you all see in the adoption of digital agriculture across the spectrum of farmers and agricultural industries.

Jim Eckberg 13:45
Some of the greatest issues, around adoption of new technologies, is that’s challenging to manage a resource or anything on the farm, when you don’t have awareness around it. And this is also a challenge to adopting, I think, the technology itself. So let’s take biodiversity, for example. We all know that pests are a big problem. And when you reach economic thresholds or breach economic thresholds, as Dr. Bick was talking about with monitoring for different pests, then now you got a problem. But what what led to that problem? In many cases, in most cases, it’s a lack of biodiversity. It’s a lack of foodweb complexity. We don’t have to farmers we don’t have the ability to, to track that easily on the farm without taking extensive scouting information or walking in your fields. There is now emerging technology that can monitor for biodiversity in fields and can be used by farmers to track and manage how do their decisions on the farm affect biodiversity? This can provide greater awareness on the linkage between biodiversity and management and subsequent pests issues. But how do you get there? Your question is, is what are the barriers? You know, it’s awareness, we don’t manage what we don’t have data on. And we don’t have awareness around these issues. This is largely why General Mills has invested so heavily in regenerative agriculture. Because it’s a holistic approach to managing resources, it brings awareness to these major issues that we have in agriculture, that, like it or not, are having a huge impact on the bottom line of farmers, whether they have data and are appreciating that in their operation, or if they don’t. So, the next steps we see for the industry really is the combination of working closely on the adoption of the soil principles, which are nothing new by the way. NRCS and others have been working with farmers on soil conservation, soil principles for decades. It’s the combination of the soil principles integrated in an holistic management system that makes it regenerative. And it’s the data collection accelerated by digital agriculture, which we see as a powerful combination to taking on these big challenges. One way in which we think we can overcome barriers is through demonstration of success on farms that we’re working with, because it’s very challenging to sign on for something new until you’ve seen a neighbor. We know that most farmers are getting information from what their neighbors are doing, or from family members. And what we do at General Mills is work closely with farmers to pilot and demonstrate the technology and the practices to impact these sustainability goals. As a demonstration for the community of how we can move in this direction. We are very keen on what we think of as others call farmer participatory research, which is bringing the scientists together with the farmers and working to solve the questions and the challenges that the farmers have. Because we have been, I think, behind the ball in the academic and industry communities, on listening to farmers, and what we have learned is that farmers are leading in these innovative practices. And we need to catch up to them by collecting the data and supporting them with research to provide insight on the things that I think farmers have intuitively been able to figure out to better manage their operations. And we’re seeing this like no other place. We’re seeing this in the regenerative agriculture movement, working with farmers that are pioneering new strategies to diversify their rotations to diversify their cropping systems, and are trying new technologies for harvesting complex mixtures and separating those mixtures in what what you call intercrops. These are just examples of a vast array of different things farmers are doing all across North America and really the world.

Emily Bick 18:25
Absolutely, absolutely. And I would say just one more thing, that awareness is a key part of it. And there are farmer groups and companies like General Mills are definitely leading alongside the watershed groups, which is, you know, state funded, but really farmer led groups that allow for sharing of the strategies. But I would also add that cost and a very clear cost benefit analysis is also necessary. So there has to be a very clear outcome where not only does the technology, is the technology not cost prohibitive. But there’s also a very clear benefit. This fits in exactly what Dr. Ekberg was saying earlier with, when we do target or precise fertilization of let’s say corn within a furrow, we are not only saving money on one end, we’re saving pollution or potential pollution on the other end, and the plants grow even better. So even though there’s a bit of a cost to get that technology into the hands of growers, all of a sudden, the cost benefit analysis is so, so clearly there. And I would say the exact same thing with biodiversity, right? If we can show that managing biodiversity actually lowers pest and we can show it much more clearly in some of these automated pest monitoring systems. Then all of a sudden, that is a business case that farmers can take on and share once the information gets out there.

Will Fulwider 19:54
So I work with a lot of farmers at different scales. I work with farmers that you know they have 100 tillable acres and, you know, got 30 cows or whatever it is as a dairy and then I have farmers that I work with that are 3000 acres and, you know, have 1000 animal units. And so it’s a huge different scale of things. And in my kind of conception of it, this new technology and the array of sensors and everything like that stands to be adopted much more readily by these kind of larger scale farmers that you know, have that larger cash flow to be able to kind of fund these high investment solutions that you know, are profitable in the long run for them, but being able to afford that investment? So I’m just curious, is this something that you see, like even kind of being adopted on the smaller scale?

Emily Bick 20:41
So I think there are a couple of different levels of investment, there is kind of these big tech investments that actually could be done at the state level, right. We have weather stations all over the state that provide a public good, which is the weather service, accurate measures of rainfall, accurate measures of snowfall, accurate temperatures, and we as a state, and we’re both government employees that we’re here with, right, we as a state have invested in exactly these large scale monitoring systems. So I would imagine in 5 – 10 years, the state could do something very similar in terms of instead of generating a weather map, generate a pest map for across a region. So that’s one piece, another piece, and we of course, need to be very careful about sharing people’s data. That’s a non starter for all of this. But another piece is there could be an added benefit to have both this technology on someone’s farm. But a significant secondary added benefit is making sure that that one piece of technology serves as a node in the network, where then someone such as a researcher or a company could draw a map and actually interpolate out what was slightly less precise information because it’s not on your field. But what’s happening in your general area. And privacy, obviously, is a top major point of concern. And we need to make sure that that’s well and protected before anything else. But there’s a group of I think it’s actually Israeli farmers that literally have one of these pest maps, where they are able to report and then interpolate all the pests in their general region, which is extremely helpful, and then doesn’t require the large infrastructure investment at the farm level.

Jim Eckberg 22:37
I don’t see a size differential in groups that would be more farms that would be more or less interested in digital agriculture. It’s the farmers who have the curiosity, the ones that use data to manage their business, the ones who you when you ask them questions about their business, they know their numbers, and they say, are the ones that I see poised most to adopt digital agriculture technologies, as a way to improve how they manage their operation. If you are working to speaking to farmers right now, if you right now have an app on your phone, that farmers that your managers check things off when they do different field practices in different fields and check off what they did for tillage when you know, when they finished fertilizing field or climbing or something along those lines, you’re already using digital technology, you’ve already taken an issue you had, which was probably managing all your employees, and found a technology that’s working for you. And, you know, and maybe the technology is great, maybe the technology’s not great, but you’ve already taken some of those first steps.

Will Fulwider 23:48
So Jim, from the industry standpoint, how does this work out for farmers, is a farmer the one that’s paying for all this different sensor equipment? Or, you know, how are you kind of incentivizing farmers to take part in these different programs.

Jim Eckberg 24:03
The farmers that have partnered with us on the research are paying nothing for the technology, it’s a privilege and an honor for us to be able to place the technology on their fields and to collect the information both to provide it to the farmers for them to see for example, how much runoff is coming off of different fields as well as information to provide to the scientists to understand how management and practices affect these key outcomes like water quality or biodiversity. We see that the only way for this technology is to scale up to watersheds and up to the level of state is if we make it inexpensive, and in talking with a professor at University Wisconsin Platteville about edge of field monitoring for water quality. I think he said it best to me when he said that we need to make water quality monitoring, like a cell phone plan, in terms of the costs that it has, and create a network of low cost sensors, that can help inform farmers on how management is affecting runoff and loss of soil, which ultimately impacts the bottom line, and how it’s affecting the state’s goals for water quality, all while protecting the identity of farmers and the primacy of those operations.

Will Fulwider 25:34
So you both kind of mentioned projects that you’re working on or areas that you’re working within, and how it’s really not a matter of size for farmers to be able to adopt or kind of engage with whatever digital agriculture is, which we’ve hopefully gotten to some better idea. Now I know, I know better now what it is. Maybe not, I couldn’t explain this eloquently as you both did. But and so I’m just kind of wondering, you know, for farmers that are looking to get a step further get further deep, more deeply engaged, kind of within this digital agriculture sphere, you know, what steps can they take?

Emily Bick 26:09
So this is the critical engagement question, right. And I would point people towards not just the watershed groups, not just the farmer led groups that General Mills and other companies engage with, but I would point people towards bringing up raising issues, raising questions with Extension folk and Extension funded faculty, because we are the people that are designed that are literally in our mission statement, what our paycheck is serving is so that we can design some of these solutions. And it’s going to be an absolutely useless, pointless solution, unless we understand what the problems are. So I would circle it right back around to Dr. Eckberg’s earlier statement, that it really, the question really matters, what problems are you having? Let us know, let Will know, we’ll let all the extension funded faculty, all the extension folks know, it’ll be raised up. And then the work that we focus on to actually bring some of these solutions to farmers trying to do it in a cost effective and equitable way, all of a sudden, we can make sure that those solutions will actually be useful and directly addressing your problems.

Jim Eckberg 27:26
I completely agree with all of that. And I’ll add that in my career, my best projects have come from thinking about the whole system and listening to the farmers. And my worst projects have come from creating a solution in an academic cocoon, hoping that farmers down the road will adopt it.

Will Fulwider 27:47
Excellent. Well, thank you both for coming on. Is there any last comments that you have before we wrap it up here?

Jim Eckberg 27:55
I just want to thank you for this time, and, again, underscore the journey that General Mills is on to support farmers and really work with farmers on taking on these big challenges. We know that we can’t do it alone. But we continue to be inspired by innovative farmers that are taking on these big challenges and protecting their family business and advancing on some of these huge issues that impact all of us in our communities, and really the world broader, broader than that. So thank you for the time, really appreciate it.

Emily Bick 28:34
And I would just add that we are here to help. Right. Our job is here to support your business to make sure that the practices that you do are as efficient and as cost effective as possible. So please reach out. Please engage. I’m on Twitter, the Bick Lab is just starting up right now. So you can find me at bicklab.com or email me at ebick@wisc.edu. And please come reach out and engage. I’m very excited to learn about the pests on your farm.

Will Fulwider 29:06
Well, Emily, and Jim, thanks very much for your time today. Appreciate it.

Jim Eckberg 29:11
Thank you.

Emily Bick 29:12
Thanks for the invite.

Will Fulwider 29:17
Thanks for listening. This has been Field Notes from UW Madison Extension. My name is Will Fulwider, Regional Crops Educator for Dane and Dodge Counties. A big thank you to Joe Ryan for creating our theme music and to Abby Wilkymacky for our logo. If you have any questions about anything you’ve heard today or about your farming practices in general, reach out to the Extension Agriculture Educators serving your region.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai