Transcript 0:00 [gentle music] I believe we want to move the needle forward, if we want to move it forward. 0:06 We all need to work together to overcome many of these hurdles if we want to see the Internet of things, the digital twin prosper in agriculture, and that's where I think some of this can really grow. 0:19 We need public and private partnerships in the States and abroad to make this all more affordable and realistic for large farms, co-op farms, family farms. 0:32 We need the technology companies to develop the systems to be connected in even the most remote of locations. 0:41 [upbeat music] Welcome to The Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world, with your host, Peggy Smedley. 0:58 Hello, listeners, and welcome to today's edition of The Peggy Smedley Show. I'm your host, Peggy Smedley. I hope you've been enjoying your long holiday week with your friends and families here in the States. 1:08 Uh, so we want to get ready and, uh, get back to work here. 1:11 Say, this month on The Peggy Smedley Show, I have been doing this mid-year Internet of things, talking all about, and now we're talking about kind of, uh, giving us all a checkup about how we've been doing things. 1:24 And, uh, we've been talking a lot about resolutions and goal setting in January, but I guess the question now we should be asking is: how are you doing on all those resolutions? Are you making any progress? 1:36 So, uh, this year has really been a roller coaster, to say the least. The war with Russia and Ukraine has put the world on edge. Supply chains are still being disrupted, if not a mess. 1:49 Uh, energy prices are continuing to soar. We've all been looking in that. And without a doubt, consumer confidence is plummeting, and it continues to go, uh, south in a lot of areas. 2:00 So this month, I encourage you to look at your industry and identify opportunities for the Internet of things and artificial intelligence. 2:08 While you might be concerned, maybe there's ways that we can do things better, faster, quicker, easier. So for today's episode, rather than look at things negatively, let's look at how we could do things better. 2:20 So I thought, let's narrow in on one industry that is finding ways to do things better. Let's talk about agriculture. 2:28 And I know agriculture might be fearing the way things are being done, but I will give you a big-picture overview at the state of the market, how things are improving, and let's talk about what they can do better, faster, quicker, easier. 2:41 And then I will give you some examples of how we can take ag to the next level with the Internet of things. But before we get to that, let me tell you about the guests we're gonna have on the show today. 2:52 I'm gonna be talking to Charlie Culp, who's the professor at the Department of Architecture and the associate director of Energy Systems Laboratory at Texas A&M University, and I can guarantee it's gonna be a great discussion there. 3:06 And then I'm gonna wrap up the show with Ruth Bejesky, vice president, Government Insights and Education in Smart Cities for IDC. So I hope you'll stick around for our great discussions as always. So let's get started. 3:20 We've all heard the statistics. The world's population is what? It's growing at a very rapid rate. 3:26 I have shared many of them in my book, as always, with Sustainable in a Circular World, that the world's population has already soared to what? We've all heard the numbers. What? 3:36 Seven point six billion, and it's expected to exceed nine point eight billion by twenty fifty. And if we continue at the rate we are going, two-thirds of the world's population might face wa-water shortages. 3:51 Farmers and the entire food supply chain need to prepare for this uptick that's on the horizon. This, of course, in many cases, easier said than done, especially with the strained food supplies we've been talking about. 4:05 We need technology now more than ever. 4:08 In fact, if you look at some of the statistics, McKinsey suggests if connecti-connectivity is implemented in agriculture, the industry could tack on five hundred billion in additional value to the global gross domestic product by twenty thirty. 4:26 Now, this would amount to what? Somewhere between seven and nine percent in improvement from, uh, its expected total. And of course, it will minimize a lot of the present pressure on farmers. 4:38 Boy, would we all love that, right, if we look at those numbers. So this is good news. It seems we might soon see more smart agriculture coming to town, and we all need that. 4:47 We all, we would, we would welcome that with open arms. 4:51 Blue Wave, or Blue Weave, I should say, Consulting suggests the smart agriculture market is forecast to grow at a rate of more than eleven percent from now until twenty twenty-eight. Now, think about that growth. 5:04 You know, this is partly due to the rising global population and the surge in food demand. We're seeing it. If we're all growing, we're all gonna need food. At least we all hope we're all gonna be fed. 5:14 So in particular, it suggests there's a big demand for weather monitoring systems, and we need, we need the data. We need the insights to predict things and not waste all this food. 5:25 We need to get it to the right people at the right place at the right time. So meanwhile, Emergen Research predicts a similar eleven percent growth rate through twenty thirty. 5:35 I love to see the analyst firms looking at these numbers very similarly. That means we're on the right track. So and it suggests we will see the rise of remote sensing, yield mapping, and data management software. 5:48 I mean, these are all the right tools that give us the insights, give us the data when we need them, where we need them, like what we've been talking about the, on this show for years now. 5:56 We're talking about right data, right information. So M-McKinsey-Gives us several use cases that have the potential to radically transform many aspects of farming by twenty thir- thirty. 6:09 In fact, some of the things it talks about are smart cropping, monitoring, drone farming, smart livestock monitoring, autonomous farming machinery, and smart building and equipment management. 6:24 I mean, these are all things you've heard about before, we've talked about, but these are things now we're seeing actually being implemented in a way that's really changing the way manufacturing farming is done, applying those machines, applying the equipment and the applications that give the insight and allow things to be done on the field, in the field, on the land, quicker, better, faster than ever before. 6:51 Now, what I love about this is I recently came across a very interesting example of autonomous farming robot. 6:59 Now, I love it when we're seeing technology ec-- actually used in the field, you know, or actually used in a manufacturing plant that you can see it, feel it, touch it, and it gets you excited about it. 7:09 But I thought I would tell you about what I've learned, because I think these things are really exciting when we can see it, and it sounds really cool, and you wanna talk about it. 7:17 But this FendtXavier robot can plant seeds on farms in twenty-four hours a day. Now, think about what that means about farming and what can be done on a farm. 7:29 So a cloud-connected fleet of these robots can be controlled through an app and provide real-time data from each unit. 7:37 Now, think about the machines and what they're doing, including its location, its status, and diagnostics. 7:44 Now, all of this is very exciting when you think about the level of work that can be done on a field on-- cropping it the whole time. 7:53 So it was developed as part of a research project, and now offers centimeter precision thanks to ApexOS software. 8:03 So in June, Apex AI, which is a software company, and AGCO, which is a manufacturer and distributor of agricultural machinery, announced the new capabilities have been added to FendtXavier, which is these giant machines that go out in the field, and the technology can help improve operations in agriculture, saving time and money in the long run. 8:27 I mean, it's really amazing when you look at how technology and machinery come together to provide the insight and in saving time in ways that we didn't imagine years ago. 8:40 So AGCO has leveraged Apex O-OS to develop a software stack for Xavier based on autom-- the automotive industry standards. So we're using things that were done in the factory environment to put out in the field. 8:56 And here is something else that I love about it. It also uses ninety percent less energy than conventional machines because of its lightweight electric design, which produces zero emissions. 9:09 Now we're talking about a sustainable environment. We're talking about something that enables us to do things better, faster, and we're not polluting everything as we do it. We're getting better. 9:19 I can't help but love this, because this is what we are talking about when we're saying we're building the right things, we're working together, and we're collaborating in a way that we didn't do before. 9:32 We're using our smarts. We're, we're, we're, we're doing things in ways that maybe we didn't think were possible. But now we're using-- we're transforming in a way that's new. 9:44 We're, we're, we're taking our technology in new ways. So this is what we need on farms across the world. This is the type of autonomy we need to bring to agriculture. 9:55 We need a safe, autonomous system to complete the complex and time-consuming tasks on the job. But of course, this-- it's not gonna be easy. 10:06 There's a lot of different things that have to come into play to produce and to develop and to learn from this. 10:12 But with any large technology implementation, this is going to come with significant challenges, as we know, and hurdles that we're going to need to overcome. But-- and of c-- and expense. 10:24 We, we all understand that, which brings me to my opinion for today. 10:29 Technology affords us the big opportunities in industries like agriculture to break out and use new ideas, to tackle new challenges with open arms and to overcome them, and, and with great opportunity and great development and, and great 10:49 shining stars to say, "This is how I get data." But challenges still remain, but great opportunities are arising. As we all know, farming is highly fragmented. Uh, think about that. 11:01 And the costs for technologies are very high for individual family farms. 11:07 So we've already kinda talked about a system that uses ninety percent less energy than conventional machines because of its lightweight electric design, which produces zero emissions. 11:19 But it, it's not a cheap system, okay? But what do we need to now is people who can help operate these advanced systems. We also need to be able to afford these systems. Farmers need a skilled workforce to operate them. 11:36 So they need the people that understand the data and information, so they need some really bright people on those farms, and they need connectivity, and oftentimes in very remote locations. So that's the challenge. 11:53 This isn't-- And we're talking around the world. We're not just talking about in big cities. We're talking very remote locations, so we need companies to work with these small family farms. 12:03 You know, we need these co-ops to be able to make that happen. So here's my tip for today.I believe we want to move the needle forward. 12:12 If we wanna move it forward, we all need to work together to overcome many of these hurdles if we want to see the Internet of things, the digital twin kind of prosper in agriculture, and that's where I think some of this can really grow. 12:27 We need public and private partnerships in the States and abroad to make this all more affordable and realistic for large farms, co-op farms, family farms. 12:40 We need the technology companies to develop the systems to be connected in even the most remote of locations. We need the workers to step up and learn a new skill set, one that is required in today's connected world. 12:57 And this is where I see things like Internet of Things, digital twins, and so many things. 13:03 The Metaverse is we're looking next to really come into play, and we need communities to rally behind farmers to make this all a reality. 13:13 I'm not sure we have any other choice if we want to feed that nearly ten billion people on this planet, on our lovely planet Earth, to save our ecosystem that we continue to pollute by twenty fifty. 13:28 But think about the ways we can replenish, replant, rebuild by using new technologies in ways that aren't totally just destroying it. We need to work together for the good f- of future generations. 13:45 We talk about that a lot, but here's a way of doing things in a way we haven't imagined before. 13:52 You know, it's, it's a way of using technology in a new, inno-innovative, immersive, future forward-thinking, generative way that I think sometimes we have to think differently in how we apply technology. 14:09 How we apply technology that was in the automotive industry and apply it now into farming, into agriculture, into ways we didn't think possible. 14:19 So when we go and we apply them, new solutions, uh, emerge, and that's where I think solutions like the Internet of Things and digital twins and our journey for digital transformation emerge, but in a sustainable way. 14:33 When we think about how do we feed all of these billions of people that we're talking about, but without using as much energy, which with, uh, that idea to move forward to say, uses less, ninety percent less energy than conventional machines, which produces zero emissions. 14:56 Think about that for a second. Now we're making big change happen. That's where really it gets exciting because now we said we didn't just do the same thing we've always had to do to farm and produce. 15:08 We've created something that makes our world a better place, and that's what I'm excited about, and I know you're excited too. 15:16 So here now, this is where we're saying, "What can we do to be better than we were in future, uh, past generations?" So I'm hoping I've given you something to think about, something to say, "What's your new resolution?" 15:30 How to use the IoT in different ways and apply other solutions with it to build upon it. So all right. 15:36 As always, if you have thoughts on what I've talked about today, please send them to me on a tweet or continue this discussion on any social media platform. 15:46 Uh, share them with me, as I said on Twitter, @connectedworld, and anywhere you want. As always, I'm out of time. Uh, you know, I, it goes by so fast, right? 15:54 Uh, check out our website at connectedworld.com, our show website at thepeggySmedleyShow.com. Make sure to subscribe on our, uh, weekly episodes each week of The Peggy Smedley Show. 16:05 But don't go away because we're gonna take a quick commercial break. As always, this is The Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. 16:15 We'll be right back. [outro jingle]
