Being profitable is the main goal of every farm business. Farm profitability depends on three main factors:
- Yield
- Revenues
- Production costs.
Complex and dependant on many production risks, agricultural production requires a lot to be successful and profitable. On the one hand, farmers constantly seek the best growing practices which will improve their yield. On the other hand, high yield is just a drop in the ocean in their way to achieving profitability. To be profitable, farmers still need to maintain their production costs at a reasonable level and invest a lot of effort to sell all crops at suitable market prices.
Luckily, the development of digital agriculture provides various solutions which can help farmers improve their yield, control the production costs and improve their sales.
Data-Driven Mindset as Precondition for Profitability
Today, satellite imagery, VRT technology, farm management software, various sensors, and many other technologies are changing the way food is produced. Each of these technologies differs in many ways. However, they all have one purpose: to facilitate farmers’ life and improve their profitability by providing the possibility for data-driven farm management. After all, data-driven farm management is the only safe way for making business decisions.
Data-driven mindset is a precondition for achieving profitability.
Making decisions based on the real data from the field helps farmers optimize their production costs and improve yield. Let’s take the example of irrigation. Farmers who perform irrigation based on their own feeling risk that crops will have an insufficient quantity of water. It can be also a case that a farmer performs unnecessary irrigation and risks that the crop has too much water. On the other hand, farmers who know the exact amount of water applied from previous irrigations, as well as the amount of water from the rainfall per each field, can easily decide on which fields to perform irrigation and in which quantity. By doing so, farmers can save money and ensure the optimal quantity of water for their crops which also affects yield.
Digital Agriculture Facilitates Season Planning
Before the beginning of a new farm season, successful farmers usually plan all aspects of their production. By doing so, they also plan expected yield, revenues, and budget. That way, at the end of the season they can easily compare how do they stand with each of these aspects. The scenario in which the farmer managed to realize his plan for all three production aspects is almost impossible. However, the point of planning is not to guess the outcome, but to compare expectations and reality, and more importantly to analyze in more detail what caused the changes.
The point of planning is not to guess the outcome, but to compare expectations and reality and to analyze in more detail what caused the changes.
Today, various modern technologies facilitate farmers their planning. From smart weather stations which alert farmers on time regarding specific weather conditions and the possibility of pest and disease occurrence to farm management software that enables creating a seasonal plan in terms of activity, budget, as well as productivity, and profitability.
Farm Management Software as Smart Investment
Farm management software brings the best of digital agriculture by providing farmers the possibility of simple record keeping, season planning, production analysis, and the possibility to integrate with other technologies of digital agriculture such as weather stations, machinery fleet management, satellite imagery, and others.
AGRIVI farm management software also provides farmers the possibility to plan their profitability per field and compare planned profitability with actual at the end of the season. By doing so, farmers can see which fields are profitable, and which lack behind and easier make decisions about the further management for the next season.
