How Data Sophisticated is UK (Arable) Ag?

Since my Master's in Agronomy in France, I've watched agricultural data evolve first-hand.

My career began with InVivio Group, the French cooperative handling market research data. When I joined YAGRO as a Data Analyst six years ago, my focus shifted to data around costs of production.

Today, I've built a well-rounded Data Team, with six full-time employees crunching numbers, analysing trends, and transforming data into actionable insights for YAGRO’s farming customers. 

Agriculture has always been data-driven. From monitoring weather patterns and crop yields to analysing variety and trial data, farmers have increasingly relied on data to make informed decisions over generations.

However, a question remains: How data sophisticated is agriculture today?

Why Data Matters

Data plays a crucial role throughout ag - including accountancy, compliance, and traceability of inputs to name a few. With the landscape changing around carbon and the emergence of SFI’s, data will only sit firmer in the driving seat... 

We estimate a farm produces around 250’000 data points per year. Amongst those are chemical records and yields alongside seed rates and drill dates. Plus agronomic data built from techniques, methods, and other variables.

While farmers know they produce data, many don't fully appreciate its potential or how to leverage it effectively. This is where the challenge lies—bridging the gap between data generation and data utilization.

Simply put: The gap currently exists between farmers creating records and getting value back from them (in the shape of valuable insights for informing decisions).

Agricultural Data Today

Despite this abundance of data, its full potential remains untapped.

Farm data often stops at the farm gate, hindered by mistrust of third party involvement or general unsureness on how to implement it. This leads to data being ‘hoarded’ on farms, simply gathering dust on clipboards.

Admittedly, the value of this data isn't always immediately clear, which is why we compared farm data to a Rubik’s Cube. With each colour on the square representing a different type of farm record, jumbled and incoherent. It’s only when the colours align do you see a complete picture. 

What’s Needed?

The future of agriculture lies in linking multiple data sources and creating a comprehensive picture of an operation. Whether to guide strategies like sales and rotations, enable accurate farm benchmarking, or the desire to look past small trial plot data and getting those numbers unique to your own farm in detail.  

Only by visualising the currently complex and mismatched picture can it be navigated effectively. Farmers can make the most informed decisions when presented with a single knowledge source. A place where data is seamlessly shared, analysed and visualised.

This is the key to a more profitable, sustainable, and efficient agricultural industry despite the many external pressures farmers currently face.

YAGRO have taken huge strides towards this future, creating a platform which is driving value for farmers nationwide. We’ve integrated with Gatekeeper to reduce manual entry, we’ve created a gross margin analysis feature and are continually refining our end-to-end coverage as a solution for arable growers.

Agricultural Data Tomorrow

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to transform most sectors, and agriculture is not exempt.

For farm data analysis, I imagine an AI tool powered with agronomic, pest and disease models to help predict best drill dates, optimise input programmes, and identify risks with ever greater accuracy.

My colleague Edwin takes this one step further and sees the development of Large Language Models (LLM’s) as a step towards being able to have conversations with our data. Asking questions and receiving detailed, accurate insights in real time.

The potential of AI is vast. Agriculture today is data literate, but not yet data sophisticated. To me, sophistication would mean seeing diverse data sources interacting seamlessly within a model that routinely drives value for farmers. Whereas today, those farmers fully embracing their data are still early adopters.

But as time goes on, the more sources that are linked together, the greater the value there is to be derived. 

Conclusion

Our mission at YAGRO is to empower farmers by transforming their data into actionable insights. We aim to unlock the full potential of agricultural data and thus the full potential of every hectare of the farm from which it originates.

Let’s embrace the exciting potential of data in agriculture and work towards a future where every farmer is empowered to make the best decision possible for their business. 

Got you Thinking?

Could your farm benefit more from the data it produces? Most likely. Book a free meeting with my colleague James who specialises is showcasing what our software can offer your farm.