What comes to mind when you think of smart machines? Smartphones? Household appliances? Manufacturing robots? These are all correct answers, but smart product technology is also a growing presence in a field everyone relies on but may not typically associate with smart technology: agriculture. In the latest episode of Future Says, John Deere’s Tim Marquis, senior product manager of operational intelligence, shares what makes advanced autonomous driving systems, data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and high-performance computing (HPC) an increasingly vital force in global agriculture.

This new wave of agriculture technology isn’t just something Marquis experiences from the proverbial cubicle – he’s on the front lines, one day tagging along in the cab alongside a farmer and the next day delivering that farmer’s insights to his team. Such is the work of someone who “sits at the nexus between our customers and our data scientists and engineers” for a global agricultural powerhouse like John Deere.

Crucial Technology for a Crucial Industry

Though for many agriculture doesn’t enjoy the same prestige it did a half a century ago, it remains the wellspring from which modern life’s many comforts emerge. Marquis stresses that almost all the food we eat and the clothes we wear depend on agriculture. Without people tilling the land, raising animals, and caring for crops, people wouldn’t have much – a maxim that’s been true for basically all of human history. Indeed, within developed nations, only in the last two centuries has agricultural technology advanced to where most people didn’t need to farm for their living; in developing countries, agriculture remains a core livelihood. But though agriculture isn’t something most Americans think about day-to-day, Marquis says that people shouldn’t discount how much technology farmers have implemented to modernize their operations for the 21st century. “You’d be surprised – farmers are quiet, but they’re some of the most advanced tech users you’re ever going to find.”

For instance, though advanced autonomous and driver-assistance systems (ADAS) has only recently hit the automotive market, Marquis says farmers have been using it for more than two decades. He also notes that John Deere has already deployed fully autonomous tractors in seven U.S. states; he says trust and proven results will increase their adoption in the other 43. “We have to get people comfortable with the idea of stepping out of the cab. That’s the key part of any autonomy journey – there’s a trust factor you have to overcome.”

Making Data a Pillar of the Modern Farm

Marquis says that data analytics has been the force powering the digital transformation of thousands of farms around the country, a trend that’s only going to accelerate as farmers invest in smarter machines and more expansive data infrastructure. After all, connectivity between machines and a centralized data hub is the first step toward a modern smart farm. John Deere knows that its machines are a pivotal link in the agricultural value chain, the vehicles through which farmers can capture their most important on- (and in-) the-ground data. “We feel like we have a key role to play in this space because we’re the trusted source for this data from the farm,” Marquis says. 

But delivering the power of enterprise data analytics and machine learning to farmers is a huge undertaking replete with obstacles. In Marquis’s words: “Agriculture isn’t rocket science – it’s harder. You’re dealing with living organisms that are completely exposed to the environment and you’re trying to make hundreds of decisions knowing that a hailstorm could come and ruin your best laid plans.” Dealing with inconsistent data quality – a fact of life in any data use case – only compounds that difficulty. “Data quality is always a key factor when you’re dealing with information at this scale,” Marquis says. “Basically [my job is] ensuring that whatever [data] is coming out of machines can be trusted and used for our modeling. Because if you put garbage in, you’re not going to get very good results. Data quality is something we live and breathe – it’s something that keeps me up at night as a product manager.”

That said, Marquis emphasizes that John Deere has been focused on putting next-generation data analytics capabilities into farmers’ hands for years – an initiative that’s only set to grow. He says this emphasis has already yielded outstanding results and proven it has the potential to change the way we conceptualize farmers and their work. “John Deere has one of the first machine learning models running on the livestream in agriculture,” he says. “We’re asking our farmers to do more with less every single day. If we can find ways with data science and machine learning to take some pressure off farmers and [ensure] better outcomes, then I’ve done my job.”

Envisioning the Future of Agriculture

Modern farmers face a host of complex challenges. In many cases, they must manage sprawling farms, an aging and shrinking labor pool, and increased competition – to say nothing of climate change and the eternal unpredictability of Mother Nature. Marquis says that one of the most memorable things a farmer ever told him was that farming was like spending all your money at a Las Vegas casino and praying that you come out on top – in other words, nothing’s certain and everything’s a gamble.

But though agriculture has always been a hard industry to make a living in, Marquis says this generation of technology can give farmers more insight than ever, upping their chances for success. Autonomy, he believes, is the culmination of physical and digital transformation – the marriage between smart machines and next-gen data – and will change everything. “To get to autonomy, you can’t just jump to it – you have to walk and crawl your way there, starting with connectivity [then moving to] leveraging data, finding a provider, and understanding how each piece of data can give you insight. It’s at least a four-step process,” he says. “But [I think] if you’re growing corn or soy by 2030, our machines are going to have the capability to be fully autonomous. It’s mind-blowing to think about the changes that are going to be happening when autonomy comes to scale on the farm.” Imagine, he says, a world where farmers can run their farm from anywhere without needing to be physically present. Now that’s a whole new industry.

Click here to listen to the full episode with John Deere’s Tim Marquis. To check out the rest of Future Says season five, visit https://altair.com/future-says. And be sure to subscribe to Future Says on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music/Audible, YouTube Music, and Podcast Addict.