USFRA Discusses Disruptive Technologies on the Farm at AgTechNexus USA
Earlier this month, U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance in collaboration with Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative coordinated Wisconsin dairy farmer Amy Penterman’s presence at AgTech Nexus USA, a two-day conference where 150 agribusinesses leaders, investors, and tech companies discussed innovations in the agriculture sector. Amy served on a panel, titled “Protein Producer Perspectives – Which Technologies are Truly Disruptive on the Farm?” Listen to the audio recording here.
Some of Amy’s insights:
Animal welfare: We care about our animals – their comfort and health is our main focus. Any changes we make on the farm is first examined to see how it will affect our cows. We also need technology and automation to keep us viable in the future.
New technologies impacting animal health: Technology such as our ear sensors from AGIS (Cow Manager) help us make fast, timely decisions about cow health, breeding and general activity. It has helped reduce vet and breeding costs, and we’re are able to detect cows’ health much faster.
Room for improvement: We need our varying computer systems/programs to talk to one another. There are a lot of great programs available, but when they aren’t streamlined with one another, it makes more work for the farmers and more difficult to implement.
Advice to farmers: Be open to technology. It changes so fast and sometimes it feels like we will never catch up. But the tech companies are eager to help and work with us.
Hosted by Global AgInvesting, the goal of the event was for attendees to gain market knowledge, understand the current trends impacting AgTech, learn from provocative discussions led by industry leaders and build professional networks. Other panelists included Lisa Prassack with Prassack Advisors, LLC, and Joy Parr Drach with Advanced Animal Diagnostics Inc.
The conference organization Kate Westfall shared, “We were thrilled to have Amy with us. Her session was an absolute highlight of the program by all accounts. We had over 150 participants representing large agribusiness, the investment community, and AgTech entrepreneurs.
