How Precision Ag Data Helps Farmers Decide Where Not to Farm

Farmers are producing a lot of useful data that could help boost their productivity and profitability. South Dakota State University’s Every Acre Counts program uses data generated from precision agriculture to pinpoint specific areas of underperformance.

“We really enjoy and like to provide that service to farmers to help them see where unprofitable acres are in their fields. The marginal land is what we call those acres,” said Anthony Bly, an SDSU Extension soils field specialist.

On the Every Acre Counts webpage, SDSU President Barry Dunn pointed out that there are 7 million South Dakota farmland acres impacted by saline conditions alone.

“The financial burden of attempting to produce crops in these marginal areas can be devastating to a producer's bottom line,” said Dunn, quoted on the webpage. “And, together, we want to change this.”

Bly calls the Every Acre Counts initiative an eye-opening experience.

“Most farmers have a general, really good general understanding of where these areas are,” said Bly, during an interview with the South Dakota Soybean Network, “They've all rode these fields. They've all combined these fields. But what's really interesting is where is that line. Where does it become unprofitable? And it's a little bit further out from that bad spot than most would think it is.”

In other words, there are likely fewer optimally productive acres than meet the eye surrounding wet, saline, sodic, or eroded soils. Farmers taking advantage of Every Acre Counts submit information that’s kept confidential and is analyzed with the goal of saving resources that would otherwise be invested in producing on marginal land.

“We pride ourselves on using their data, their economic input data. And so it's an empowering moment for their farm and it's free. We're doing it because we believe in it,” said Bly. “I'm learning a lot from this experience, and we firmly believe that it's a paradigm shift, a shift in the norms and the way we think about land management.”

The Every Acre Counts area of focus, as outlined on its webpage, is that “SDSU Extension will work with selected landowners and their crop and financial consultants to precisely quantify the technical metrics of their existing operations and generate an economic analysis report. That information will then be incorporated into a profit mapping software to pinpoint and quantify marginal acres. In addition, federal, state and local habitat and conservation programs will be used to leverage funding.”

From a profitability and resource management standpoint, Bly says there are farmland acres that are better to be left out of production.

“Not every soil type is equal, and some of them aren't suited for profitable crop production. So that, in a sense, is the goal of Every Acre Counts,” Bly concluded, “and the outcome is to help those producers be more profitable and see these acres in a different way.”