That can pose difficulties for telematics-equipped farm equipment, and as agricultural equipment continues to come ever closer to full autonomy, a potential gap in real-time communications becomes a pretty major obstacle.

At the beginning of the year, John Deere announced the introduction of its satellite-based connectivity offering called JDLink Boost.

Initially it was launched only in Brazil, where cellular service is very limited, and the United States, but as of June 9, the subscription service is now available in Canada.

“We launched this solution in Brazil and the U.S. in early January, but we recognized the need in other large economies where we need to get the solution out,” says Mike Kool, senior product manager for global connected fleet at John Deere.

“It’s been great to see. We’ve seen orders flowing through. Ultimately, we understand the challenges producers have in certain parts of Canada with poor connectivity.”

Signing up for the service has a US$1,000 cost, which basically covers the price of the terminal and all the necessary hardware to mount it in a machine. A three-year free subscription comes with the hardware.

Customers need to order JDLink Boost through their local dealer, who will need to set up a machine to work with the system. A single system can be moved between machines over the season.

Deere has partnered with Starlink’s satellite network to provide this service, but customers will not have any dealings with Starlink. All technical support will be handled by Deere.

JDLink Boost will ensure a machine maintains connectivity by using both the satellite system and in some cases reverting to existing cellular networks.

“If it loses the Starlink network, it will fall back to cell,” says Kool.

“It will use cell where it can, too. It’s an augmentation of both solutions, cellular and satellite, giving the customer the best possible connection.”

JDLink Boost also has a dual connectivity feature, which allows for data transfer to and from the machine but also provides a wi-fi connection, so a farmer can use it to access the internet with other devices.

“You have a connection that’s just for machine and agronomic data coming off the machine to and from the John Deere Operations Center,” says Kool.

“But they also have the ability to set up a guest wi-fi network. You connect your phone through the guest wi-fi in the JDLink Boost terminal.

“The dealer will be able to help them in order, installation and ensuring the solution is activated on whichever machine they’d like to put it on.”

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The United States Federal Aviation Administration, which administers the civilian-use GPS network, plans to switch WAAS GEO 6 (S15 – PRN 133) from regular operation to test mode beginning May 13. It will remain out of service until June 7.

However, the other two WAAS satellites, 131 and 135, will function during that time so producers will still be able to find a signal.

The planned outage is one in a recent ongoing series of WAAS satellites going offline, according to a statement in the FAA’s Service Performance Analysis Report for the last quarter of 2024.

“During this reporting period, 1 October through 31 December 2023, there were eight reported outages. Eight outages were maintenance activities and were reported in advance, and there were no unscheduled outages … The minimum duration of a scheduled outage forecasted ahead of time was 139.2 hours.”

A WAAS signal has been available to producers at no cost since GPS auto guidance first became common in agriculture, but the technical capabilities offered by today’s equipment can no longer be fully used with only a WAAS signal.

“WAAS is technically rated as a sub-metre signal,” says Matt Yanick, owner of My Precision Ag in Rocanville, Sask.

“I always say it’s free for a reason. It’s been an option for many years since the start of auto steer, but many farms have outgrown that.”

While WAAS remains popular with many growers, it doesn’t allow the kind of accuracy needed for a sprayer to follow in the same wheel tracks, for example.

With other options available, is it time for producers to upgrade to a more accurate and more reliable option?

Yanick thinks people with receivers capable of handling upgraded signals should consider it. He’s often surprised to see farmers operating new equipment while still using the WAAS signal.

“In my opinion, the more accuracy you can have on a piece of machinery on your farm, the more accurate every application is, the less issues you have as well. You’re not fighting drift or other issues that might occur from drift. You’re not having issues with section control. You’re not having misses on your pass-to-pass. You can make more accurate boundaries with a better signal. Your VR maps are more accurate.”

Signal outages with upgraded systems are likely to be less frequent and of shorter duration than what WAAS users have experienced.

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At the same time, accessibility in nanosatellite technology and higher-resolution imagery has not led to sweeping adoption of detailed information.

Has satellite imagery’s march to the mainstream stalled?

According to those in the know, it’s too early to say.

Where there has been significant growth — and greater opportunity — is in the launch of “resellers”: services that gather data on behalf of customers interested in obtaining imagery from an increasing number of satellites in orbit.

Why it matters: Resellers offer satellite imagery information that’s easier for end-users and can be more cost-effective.

Ben Kovacs is a senior earth observation consultant with SkyWatch Space Applications. The Kitchener-Waterloo-based company is one of dozens, if not hundreds of service providers creating background infrastructure for companies, accessing data for testing, prototyping and generating solutions for particular markets.

It’s an intermediate stage in precision ag/imagery, providing information and detail that’s friendlier for end-users.

“We’re focusing on making earth observation technology easier and more accessible — and also more affordable,” says Kovacs, who’s based in Vancouver. “In agriculture, we’re starting to see a lot of applications in South America, Asia and Africa.”

Observation technology has seen enormous acquisitions by companies and considerable resources flooding the marketplace. New assets are arriving in space, the availability of higher-resolution images is growing and creating new layers of data.

As access to hyperspectral technology increases, so will options for growers and advisers. And there’s thermal radar combined with hyperspectral imagery for crop-penetrating and ground-penetrating systems.

“Once they’re there, we can start to combine different data sources to build more effective models to be able to better understand some of these nuanced things we don’t fully understand,” says Kovacs.

Next steps

As more resellers have entered the market, Aaron Breimer has found a small yet dedicated contingent of agronomists willing to expand their offerings by further specializing in imagery analysis. Historically if someone wanted satellite imagery, they’d approach the constellation provider like Planet or Airbus.

Now, companies like SkyWatch have arrangements with those providers, allowing them to choose the depth of data, making it easier to access higher resolutions at a more reasonable price point. That’s creating opportunity for intermediate service providers like agronomists who are committing more time and effort to be an information conduit.

This is where precision agriculture is inching towards collaboration, which Breimer concedes is a difficult concept.

“True collaboration is something we’re working on,” says Breimer, vice president of data insights with Deveron, based in Chatham, Ont.

“Agriculture is still very fragmented and collaboration for a lot of people comes down to, ‘As long as you do it my way, I’ll collaborate with you’, but that’s co-operation. There are some amazing agronomists and I would love to work with more of them.”

What else is changing?

The science of getting the imagery hasn’t changed but data files can be massive, given the land area that satellites cover (50 square kilometres equals more than 12,000 acres). Growers and advisers want control of the imagery of their fields, despite the inability of standard laptops for downloads, storage and stitching images required for in-depth analysis.

The decision still comes down to value.

“My definition of value has always been, ‘Is the farmer willing to pay?’” says Breimer.

He agrees the industry isn’t to the point where growers are willing to pay for what many believe is an unproven service, which necessitates those well-trained, collaboration-minded advisers.

“Ultimately those are the people who are going to learn the technology or pass that technology out, and if it’s there, they’re going to assist farmers in being able to adapt to it.”

– Read more from Ralph Pearce on this topic at Country Guide.

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Dubbed SWOT, short for Surface Water and Ocean Topography, the advanced radar satellite is designed to give scientists an unprecedented view of the life-giving fluid covering 70 per cent of the planet, shedding new light on the mechanics and consequences of climate change.

A Falcon 9 rocket, owned and operated by billionaire Elon Musk’s commercial launch company SpaceX, was set to liftoff before dawn on Thursday from the Vandenberg U.S. Space Force Base, about 275 km northwest of Los Angeles, to carry SWOT into orbit.

If all goes as planned, the SUV-sized satellite will produce research data within several months.

Nearly 20 years in development, SWOT incorporates advanced microwave radar technology that scientists say will collect height-surface measurements of oceans, lakes, reservoirs and rivers in high-definition detail over 90 per cent of the globe.

The data, compiled from radar sweeps of the planet at least twice every 21 days, will enhance ocean-circulation models, bolster weather and climate forecasts and aid in managing scarce freshwater supplies in drought-stricken regions, according to researchers.

The satellite was designed and built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles. Developed by the U.S. space agency in collaboration with its counterparts in France and Canada, SWOT was one of 15 missions listed by the National Research Council as projects NASA should undertake in the coming decade.

“It’s really the first mission to observe nearly all water on the planet’s surface,” said JPL scientist Ben Hamlington, who also leads NASA’s sea-level change team.

One major thrust of the mission is to explore how oceans absorb atmospheric heat and carbon dioxide in a natural process that moderates global temperatures and climate change.

Scanning the seas from orbit, SWOT is designed to precisely measure fine differences in surface elevations around smaller currents and eddies, where much the oceans’ drawdown of heat and carbon is believed to occur. And SWOT can do so with 10 times greater resolution than existing technologies, according to JPL.

Looking for oceans’ tipping point

Oceans are estimated to have absorbed more than 90 per cent of the excess heat trapped in Earth’s atmosphere by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Studying the mechanism by which that happens will help climate scientists answer a key question: “What is the turning point at which oceans start releasing, rather than absorbing, huge amounts of heat back into the atmosphere and accelerate global warming, rather than limiting it?” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, SWOT’s program scientist at NASA in Washington.

SWOT’s ability to discern smaller surface features also be used to study the impact of rising ocean levels on coastlines.

More precise data along tidal zones would help predict how far storm-surge flooding may penetrate inland, as well as the extent of saltwater intrusion into estuaries, wetlands and underground aquifers.

Freshwater bodies are another key focus SWOT, equipped to observe the entire length of nearly all rivers wider than 100 metres, as well as more than one million lakes and reservoirs larger than 15 acres.

Taking inventory of Earth’s water resources repeatedly over SWOT’s three-year mission will enable researchers to better trace fluctuations in the planet’s rivers and lakes during seasonal changes and major weather events.

NASA’s SWOT freshwater science lead, Tamlin Pavelsky, said collecting such data was akin to “taking the pulse of the world’s water system, so we’ll be able to see when it’s racing and we’ll be able to see when it’s slow.”

SWOT’s radar instrument operates at the so-called Ka-band frequency of the microwave spectrum, allowing scans to penetrate cloud cover and darkness over wide swaths of the Earth. This enables scientists to accurately map their observations in two dimensions regardless of weather or time of day and to cover large geographic areas far more quickly than before.

By comparison, previous studies of water bodies relied on data taken at specific points, such as river or ocean gauges, or from satellites that can only track measurements along a one-dimensional line, requiring scientists to fill in data gaps through extrapolation.

“Rather than giving us a line of elevations, it’s giving us a map of elevations, and that’s just a total game changer,” Pavelsky said.

— Steve Gorman is a Reuters correspondent in Los Angeles.

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“There were both bullish and bearish surprises,” MarketsFarm Pro analyst Mike Jubinville said.

While canola production of 18.174 million tonnes was still up considerably from the drought-stricken 13.757 million-tonne crop of 2021, the official reading was well off the 19.098 million tonnes forecast in September and below the low end of trade estimates.

The December report was StatCan’s first of the year to rely on farmer surveys, whereas earlier estimates were based off models and satellite imagery.

StatCan on Friday pegged all-wheat production at 33.824 million tonnes, down by about 900,000 tonnes from the September estimate, but still up from 22.296 million tonnes the previous year. Of that total, durum at 5.443 million tonnes was well off the previous estimate of 6.117 million tonnes.

“If there was an expectation amongst world buyers of durum that there was going to be a plentiful supply of Canadian durum this year, think again,” said Jubinville.

While canola and durum were both revised lower, barley and oats production came in at the higher end of trade expectations at 9.987 million and 5.226 million tonnes respectively.

The larger barley crop will especially weigh on feed barley prices, especially with corn shipments already coming up from the U.S. to Canadian feedlots, according to Jubinville.

In addition, more oats will likely be forced to move into feed channels as the domestic milling capacity is only so large.

Table: Summary of December survey-based principal field crop production estimates for 2022-23, in millions of metric tonnes, with previous estimates and year-ago numbers included for comparison. Source: Statistics Canada.

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Using satellite imagery, the government agency now sees total canola production for the 2021-22 crop year at 12.78 million tonnes, which compares with the August estimate of 14.75 million and the year-ago level of 19.49 million.

“A lack of rain and high temperatures have negatively impacted crop growth and yield potential across much of the Prairies,” StatsCan said in its report.

Wheat production was pegged at 21.72 million tonnes, which was down by about a million tonnes from the August estimate and well below the year-ago level of 35.18 million. If realized, that would mark the smallest wheat crop in the country since 2007.

Of the wheat total, durum production was estimated at 3.55 million tonnes, down 11 per cent from August and about a million tonnes below the year-ago level.

Most of the other major Prairie-grown crops also saw downward revisions from August, with only corn and soybeans — which are primarily grown in Ontario — seeing upward revisions.

Canada’s corn crop was pegged at 14.37 million tonnes, which was up by about five per cent from both the month and year-ago levels.

Total soybean production was estimated at 5.89 million tonnes — up slightly from the August estimate of 5.82 million tonnes, but still below the 2020-21 production of 6.36 million.

The Crop Condition Assessment Program (CCAP) indicates overall plant health in Western Canada was lower to much lower than normal, having decreased considerably throughout August. This indicates the likelihood of lower than normal yields.

An assessment of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) curves, which are a measure of plant health, indicated that in almost all parts of the Prairies, crops reached peak health well ahead of normal.

In some instances, peak NDVI occurred up to four weeks earlier, before decreasing rapidly, as a lack of moisture and high temperatures took a toll on plant health.

In Eastern Canada, the CCAP data are similar to average, as parts of Ontario and the Maritimes received higher-than-normal rainfall, while most of Quebec remains drier than average.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

Table: A quick summary of Statistics Canada’s principal field crop production estimates for 2021-22. August estimate, year-ago numbers and five-year average (2016-2020) are included for comparison. Production in millions of metric tonnes. Source: Statistics Canada.

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Now, a few days after USDA’s supply and demand estimates, Statistics Canada is already set to update its Aug. 30 report. The federal agency on Tuesday will issue its next principal field crops report, which will rely on satellite imagery.

“That vegetative picture is not looking as prominent and will have some impact trending lower,” MarketsFarm Pro analyst Mike Jubinville said.

“If you take the yield analysis of both Saskatchewan and Alberta crop reports did last week, [production] should be under 12 million tonnes.”

Alberta said its canola yields were about 26 bushels per acre after 13 per cent of the province’s crop had been combined. With 31 per cent of Saskatchewan’s canola in the bin, its agriculture department placed yields at 20 bu/ac.

The key is choosing between what should be the correct estimate versus what Statistics Canada is likely to report, of which Jubinville suggested the federal agency could peg canola in the lower 13 million-tonne range.

“They may eventually get there, but I don’t know if they’re going to do it tomorrow,” he said.

Nevertheless it has become a sharp turnaround for canola production in Canada. Projections at one point earlier this year called for just over 20 million tonnes, somewhat above the 2020-21 crop of almost 19.5 million tonnes.

Severe drought and intense heat across the Prairies resulted in canola, as well as other crops, maturing quickly and not getting enough time to generate a sufficient number of seeds.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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Speaking at an industry event in Sao Paulo, JBS CEO Gilberto Tomazoni said the company is using satellite technology to monitor a 450,000 square-km area of Brazil to guarantee it is not buying cattle from deforested areas.

“We need to offer what the consumer wants. We cannot do that without worrying about the environment and animal welfare,” Tomazoni said. “This is fundamental to our business.”

The executive noted a new generation of consumers believe that “modern agriculture” destroys the planet. He called that perception misguided given that such up-to-date methods allow JBS and others to produce more food with far fewer resources.

His remarks come as fires burning in parts of the Amazon rainforest have sparked a global outcry against Brazil for allegedly failing to protect what is widely viewed as a key bulwark against global climate change.

Last month, local media reported JBS had been buying cattle from ranchers operating on deforested land in the Amazon, a claim denied by the company, which is the world’s largest producer of beef, chicken and leather products.

In a statement sent to Reuters, however, JBS admitted at the time that surveying indirect cattle suppliers was challenging due to a lack of public databases that would allow development of a proper monitoring system.

— Ana Mano is a Reuters commodities correspondent in Sao Paulo.

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The USDA was set to release its views on the projected size of U.S. soybean stockpiles, among other data, following a record-large domestic harvest and a trade war with China that has slowed U.S. exports.

Commodity traders, economists, grain merchants and farmers are anxious for crop updates as they work to project their financial balance sheets and make spring planting decisions.

“It’s been crazy busy,” said Sara Menker, CEO of New York-based Gro Intelligence.

The shutdown, now in its third week, has rippled across the already struggling U.S. farm economy ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned address at the American Farm Bureau conference in Louisiana on Monday. Federal loan and farm aid applications have also been delayed.

To fill the void on data, traders and farmers are relying on private crop forecasters, satellite imagery firms and brokerages offering analyses on trade and supplies. Some have been scouring Twitter for tidbits on shifting weather patterns and rumours of grain exports, but say it is difficult to replace USDA.

“We’re just doing the best we can, looking for as much information as is available,” said Brian Basting, economist for Illinois-based broker Advance Trading, which provides customers its own harvest and crop supply estimates.

“Everyone’s got their own internal numbers but the USDA is the most comprehensive data source.”

Dan Henebry, an Illinois corn and soy farmer, said the absence of USDA data was difficult.

“You delay all these reports and the market has no idea where to go, other than trade guesses,” Henebry said.

Hunt for numbers

Gro Intelligence has been offering free access to its data platform since Dec. 27, and plans to release worldwide supply-demand crop forecasts on Friday. The company will keep its platform open for the duration of the shutdown, Menker said.

So far, Menker said, the site has signed up executives from the top 10 global agribusiness companies and major financial institutions with credit exposure to U.S. agriculture.

Data firm Mercaris has gained new subscribers too, as it has become the only source for organic commodity prices since the halt in USDA reports, sales director Alex Heilman said. The Maryland-based company is making an additional pricing report available to users for free until the federal agency reopens.

“Everybody still needs this information for creating contracts, new product lines, planting acres,” Heilman said.

Farmers Business Network (FBN), which collects harvest data from 7,000 U.S. farmers, is set to release crop yield estimates on Friday to members. The data is not as comprehensive as the USDA’s report would have been, though, said Kevin McNew, FBN’s chief economist.

“At the end of the day, we still need a benchmark,” McNew said. “For better or worse, USDA is the best benchmark we have.”

While crops are not growing in North America during the winter season, traders are still looking for updated information from South America and other parts of the world where soy and other crops are growing.

An increase in private companies using government-collected satellite images to track farmed fields in recent years helps shine a light on global crop conditions even while government agencies are dark. The government’s Landsat satellites continue to collect images of the earth and other data.

Private companies such as Descartes Labs can still access the open-sourced data and analyze it. The Santa Fe, New Mexico-based company is among the crop forecasters that releases its own production estimates based on its research and analyses of government-collected data.

The public can normally see those images on the U.S. Geological Survey’s website, but it is not being updated during the shutdown, according to a notice on the site.

And all technology can be problematic, said Steve Truitt, government program manager for Descartes.

Data packets occasionally have shown up late during the shutdown, or have not arrived, Truitt said. The government staffers at USDA and the Interior Department who Descartes usually calls either cannot be reached or are working without pay, leading to awkward conversations.

The shutdown has also caused uncertainty within Descartes’ offices, which has several impacted government contracts. Staff are not sure when invoices will be paid, Truitt said, or whether delivery dates are being pushed back.

— Reporting for Reuters by P.J. Huffstutter and Tom Polansek in Chicago; additional reporting by Julie Ingwersen.

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Winnipeg-based digital ag consulting firm Farmers Edge recently released Health Change Maps and Notifications, a new function that automatically scans the company’s daily satellite imagery and alerts growers of any changes in field health or spots where the field’s condition departs from the norm.

With new satellite images available daily at a three-metre resolution, and the system on an “aggressive” setting, the grower can pick up “fairly subtle” changes that wouldn’t be quickly detected at a 10-metre resolution or through images delivered less often, Jamie Denbow, global digital ag lead for Farmers Edge, said in an interview.

“Last year, we solved the challenge of infrequent, inconsistent imagery available to growers with the integration of daily satellite imagery into our platform,” company CEO Wade Barnes said in a release. “Now, growers see at least one, if not multiple, field images per day — which is a good problem to have, but it can also be time-consuming.”

On average, Farmers Edge said, growers spend three to six minutes per field checking imagery. With the Health Change Maps function, however, the Farmers Edge platform instead identifies areas of alert and informs the grower with automatic notifications.

The new tool’s algorithms, proprietary to the company, spot significant changes in the satellite imagery and automatically trigger notifications outlining positive or negative vegetative changes in the field, delivered to the grower by email.

In those notifications, a grower is directed to Map Manager in the company’s FarmCommand farm management platform to view the Health Change Map and the exact locations and details of the change.

By spotting such changes, the company said, a grower can head off potential problems, such as pests, disease, nutrient deficiencies, inclement weather, missed applications, equipment malfunctions or drainage issues, and “react to crop stress before yield is impacted.”

The system offers both “positive” and “negative” alerts to growers; for example, a “positive” alert where vegetative growth exceeds the rest of the field would show a double-seeded spot or an emerging weed problem earlier in the season, while a “negative” alert, later in the season, would show spots where growth isn’t keeping up with the rest of the field.

A crop scout can then head directly to the flagged area, Denbow said, rather than wander the field in a ‘W’ pattern scouting for problems that may or may not exist.

For example, he said, the notifications recently given to crop scouts in Brazil using the system helped them detect emerging weed patches and outbreaks of cutworm.

Brazil is the only area with active growing crops right now where Farmers Edge clients are using the system, he said, but noted it’s been beta-tested throughout the world, including in the Canadian Prairie provinces and Ontario and in the U.S. Midwest, as well as in Australia and Russia.

Growers get the option to set the notification parameters at “aggressive” or “conservative” levels, and can also add other users and field service providers to receive notifications, Farmers Edge said.

From user feedback, Denbow said, the “aggressive” setting is expected to be the preferred option, whereas growers with field under irrigation or at a less time-sensitive stage might instead opt for “conservative” mode.

The system also gives growers a better idea of the geographic scope of problems such as hail or excessive rain, he said, which would be helpful when dealing with crop insurance adjusters.

Given time and machine-learning, he said, such a system might also be able to help detect the more specific nature of the problem, not just alerting growers that a problem exists.

For now, the system can be set to ignore unavoidable issues on a given patch of land, such as sand ridges or low spots, so a grower wouldn’t receive notifications about issues on those spots for a set period of time. Over subsequent years of use, he said, the data gathered will help improve the system’s understanding of each field.

Health Change Maps and Notifications joins a list of other notification options Farmers Edge released earlier this year, including Rainfall and Growth Stage Notifications, the company noted. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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