An Honest Look at SaaS Adoption in the Farming Industry in America
Let’s look at the farming industry in America:
In 2020, it was estimated that there are 2.02 million farms in America, declining slowly from 2.20 million a decade prior. 86% of U.S. agricultural products are produced on family farms or ranches, so the rate at which said family farms and ranches are declining is not good news for the country’s food supply.
So why are there fewer farms than there used to be?
One reason might have been the prior lack of available technology infrastructure needed to support local farms and help them scale. As in other industries like retail, healthcare, and entertainment, technology is created to make services and products run smoother and grow bigger. Agriculture is no stranger to this advancement, and the last 5-10 years have shown significant improvement in SaaS adaptations and overall adoption.
For farms, SaaS tools and other agritech solutions can help manage key operational and financial functions, which can help farmers run the day-to-day and even increase revenue. But are farm and land owners benefitting from SaaS in America’s farming industry? If so, how?
How the farming industry in America can benefit from SaaS tools
With adoption of any SaaS tool or other technological advancement designed to scale businesses, there’s a need for education on its benefits and how to leverage them.
Data storage and analysis.
“Data is power. This is no different in agriculture, where the role of big data in driving efficiencies has not been insignificant,” says Pinduoduo. “Quite to the contrary, big data has enabled farmers to gain detailed insights into areas such as how different areas of their land behave through the seasons, the granular efficiency of their specific farming practices, and where environmental impact can be reduced, to name a few.”
Where there’s data, there’s a need to store it and be able to easily analyze it. Any farm that wants to scale both in size, revenue, and opportunity needs to have adequate data storage, be it those land insights, environmental impacts, even customer data — SaaS tools can store this more efficiently, making it easier to analyze and create business decisions from.
Nearly 90% of America’s agricultural products — which makes up a significant portion of our food source — come from family farms. That food demand is only increasing, and the ability to scale the production of those food sources will be heavily reliant on data-driven decision making.
There are many factors, however, that can affect this food production that can be measured by data which can then be considered in how to proceed. This includes weather patterns, soil and land data, even pest infestations and management — all of which can be stored in SaaS tools and managed.
Crop modeling.
In an effort to increase crop output throughout the farming industry in America, tactics like agroforestry are leveraged to purposefully integrate fruit, vegetable, nut, and other types of trees. Not only does this increase biodiversity on land, it helps expedite the food production process and keeps existing soil rich.
Before agritech introduced SaaS solutions to farms and land owners, crop modeling required more guesswork than accurate predictions rooted in data. With the adoption of such tools, farmers can firmly answer the important questions, like:
What crops are most viable for growing?
Where on my land should they grow?
What should my target yield be, by crop, versus what my expected yield is?
What other types of vegetation should I implement to support those crops, and where should they go?
How will weather conditions, pest infestations, and soil quality affect my yield?
How does my potential output compare to local, regional, state, and national standards?
What is my expected ROI?
These tools can also use GPS, satellite, or drone data to effectively map land for more precise positioning.
Financial forecasting.
Understanding the financial implications of these data-driven decisions and understanding cash flow throughout your business is one of the best features of an agritech SaaS tool:
“It has now become convenient for businesses to choose a solution that best addresses specific business goals within the allocated budget and integrate the same with the existing digital system in a cost effective manner as against setting up and managing an in-house solution.”
With tools like Overyield, farm and land owners have full insight into the outcomes of their efforts, such as 30-year cash flows and metrics on carbon sequestration potential — and they see it on the same dashboard as the other important stuff.
Sustainable implementations.
The farming industry in America is one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Finding ways to curb those emissions doesn’t just happen by guesswork.
By leveraging SaaS, farmers can track the validity of their sustainable implementations. Whether that’s by measuring agroforestry improvements, understanding changing climate patterns, measuring water usage, or expediting the food production process to meet demand, agritech is continuing to explode with cash infusions and technological advancements in an effort to help farmers meet these demands — sustainably.
Partner and vendor outsourcing and management.
With the implementation of new crops, vegetation, and technology to manage it all, it’s likely that some farm owners will need to outsource operational or financial roles. Some SaaS tools will be able to not only help source who those vendors are, but manage communication and payment to those vendors as well, in the same way SaaS for technology companies can.
Farmers and landowners are better with SaaS
It’s crucial for those in the farming industry in America to embrace SaaS. Education for what these technologies are and how they can be used to manage agricultural and business functions is the most important step. It’s also often the biggest barrier to widespread adoption.
Learn more about tools like Overyield that are helping farm and land owners own their end-to-end experience by leveraging the power of SaaS.
