First Posted: 3/21/2015
TROY — This year’s 24th annual Farm Forum discussion sounded more like a scene from the television show “The Big Bang Theory” rather than an open discussion on agriculture and technology, but the two industries are marrying together quickly to provide more data than ever before for U.S. farmers.
U.S. Rep. John Boehner’s 8th Congressional District’s Farm Forum titled “The Impact of New Technology on Agriculture” addressed the rapidly changing technology in agriculture computer systems, NASA data, and its role on the farm and the role unmanned aircraft systems will be playing in modern agriculture practices.
The annual event was held at Troy Christian Elementary School on Saturday morning.
“Today’s panel and today’s discussion is something probably none of us would have thought about if you go back to the first Farm Forum,” Boehner said. “These things weren’t even on people’s minds. As I listened to the conversation this morning and listening to [keynote speaker Steve Phipps] talk, we are going to continue to see research dollars into land grants at universities where a lot of our research is done.”
Boehner said the public will see technology transfer to and from the government and cited his visit on Friday to the Springfield Air National Guard Base, where pilots tested drones as part of their intelligence mission work.
Phipps, chairman of the board of directors of Woolpert Inc., addressed attendees about the future use of UAS technology in precision agriculture. Woolpert received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration in December to fly its UAS commercially in Ohio and in Mississippi. The Dayton-based company is exploring data applications using UAS to collect data for damage assessment and emergency response to surveying and mapping energy transportation corridors, construction monitoring, environmental studies and precision agriculture.
“I think what we need is we need more ‘crazy movement forward,’” Phipps said to Boehner in closing. “We need you to continue to put pressure on the FAA to let commercial operations fly UASs like you heard today. … We need research and development — federal dollars — for the agri-areas. We need technology transferred into two- and four-year degrees that you talked about. [Research] and [development] transfers to the private sector so they can get that [R&D] product out. And lastly, we need faster Internet speeds in rural areas.”
Boehner addressed Phipps’ concerns and said the U.S. does not have the broadband capability today to meet storage and speed needs to expand its use to rural areas — and pointed out that the Obama administration’s recent net neutrality initiative was slowing the advancement in the technology even further.
“You’ll continue to see a battle between the White House and Capitol Hill over the FCC’s interest in getting involved in the radio frequencies,” Boehner said. “As I’ve described it, their net neutrality rules are a solution in search of a problem.”
Phipps said technology on the farm could produce data for more environmentally friendly field applications with the use of field drones and UAS.
“You heard our panelists talk about their vision for the future with drones, unmanned aerial vehicles and systems capturing data and geographical information systems turn that data into field prescriptions and precision planting machines go out and orient those seeds in optimal locations,” Phipps said.
Phipps said advanced technology could also assist in more precision spraying technology and spot treatments in only in the areas needed to make farm operations more efficient and produce higher yields.
The FAA has drafted proposed rules on flying small unmanned aerial vehicles commercially in the nation’s airspace. The regulations would apply to drones less than 55 pounds and fly below 500 feet. The rules are under public review and may be in place within two years. Farmers who want to use UAS on their farms have until April 24 to express their opinion on the rules. For information, visit http://j.mp/1OjtYrK.
