For a committed user of the Climate FieldView digital integration system, Mike Ferguson had an unusual observation about himself.
“I’m not a big technology guy,” said Ferguson, who with his wife Regan farms 3,000 acres at Melfort, Sask.
But for him, using the various data-based management tools available in farming today isn’t just helpful, but essential. The problem is that bringing it all together in one place is critical so that he can handle it and not become overwhelmed, which is why he like Bayer’s FieldView.
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The system brings together data streams from various sources, allowing a farmer to take a more holistic approach to management than hopping from app to app to app.
“Take time to learn it,” said Regan Ferguson, who likes the logistic and cost insights the program allows her to develop.
On Tuesday at Ag in Motion, Bayer put together a farmers’ panel to talk about how each uses the program. While it allows for much sophisticated analysis, if that’s what a farmer wants, it also allows for simpler but essential tasks, said Chris Bauer of Lake Lenore, Sask.
“We mark rocks with FieldView,” said Bauer about one of those basic uses, in which rocks are spotted during field operations, pinned and then picked up later.
Integrating data flow is important when most farms run various types of equipment.
“With the rainbow of colours of equipment on the farm, having a single data point … was number one for us,” said Bauer.
Eston, Sask. farmer Dave Hewlitt said that as well as the management and production gains that are possible with better data management, being able to show others a farm’s true results is likely to become more and more important.
“Verification might start to really matter,” he said.
While systems like FieldView are relatively new developments, in another way they have been around as long as farmers have been able to read and write.
“We used to say you have to put it down with pen and paper,” said Mike Ferguson.
“Now it’s on a tablet.”
— Ed White reports for the Western Producer from Winnipeg.
