FarmLink’s data platform allows farmers to maximise yields on any type of land

Today’s global agriculture industry is experiencing a level of change on a par with mechanisation and biotechnology. With the recent rapid growth of the agtech segment globally, data science solutions represent the next catalyst for radical innovation across the global food system. Helping to lead these efforts is the winner of the 2016 New Economy Award for Best Agriculture Solutions – FarmLink, a US data science company located in Kansas City, Missouri.

“Advanced data science and associated technology are essential ingredients to addressing the most complex challenge of our time – feeding our growing global population in a sustainable manner”, said Dan Glickman, former US Secretary of Agriculture. “With greater access to high-quality data, farmers and researchers can uncover the insights needed to increase productivity locally while protecting our natural resources in a more efficient and effective manner.”

Farming data
Seven years ago, FarmLink began building its proprietary analytics platform by connecting the managed combine fleet of sister company MachineryLink. The fleet of more than 250 combine harvesters collected real-time yield data and related calibration data during harvests across six million acres in 26 states. Introducing the first Internet-of-Things concept in agriculture, the fleet’s live data stream, paired with field and weather data, enabled the company to build proprietary data indices that included more than 50 natural variables (including sun, soil and moisture), along with accurate yield data at an unprecedented micro-field resolution of 150 sq ft. By reverse engineering these datasets, FarmLink’s team of data scientists determined the various drivers of yield on a specific micro-field, and thereby isolated the effect of product decisions and farming practices on production under comparable conditions. In extensive back-testing, the company achieved r-squares between 0.92 and 0.98 when its proprietary indices were compared to historical USDA data at county levels across key US growing regions.

“The result is that we’ve been able to create one of the world’s largest agricultural datasets as the foundation for our sophisticated data analytics platform”, said Ron LeMay, Chairman and CEO of FarmLink. “After working with farmers and agribusiness leaders, we believe it will take a combination of industry knowhow and grit, coupled with robust data science and analytics, to ensure a positive outcome for the nine billion people expected by 2050.”

The company wasted little time finding partners who could leverage the dataset and hasten innovation. This initial capability has been applied to land benchmarking, agricultural practices benchmarking, grain trading decisions, product benchmarking and other scientific and environmental tests of effectiveness within the last two years alone.

Accurate modelling
While growth in the agtech segment continues to accelerate, for most agriculture companies, data science and associated technology is at a very early stage of development, due in large part to a lack of high-quality data required for scientifically reliable, predictive models.

Since 2014, and with more than six years of quality data verified, FarmLink has been working with public and private organisations to sustainably solve complex biological, environmental and economic challenges, including how to maximise yields, how to optimise inputs, and how to minimise environmental degradation. FarmLink’s unique dataset consists of more than one billion test plots of corn, wheat and soybean yield data, of which partners have been able to leverage the analytics and insights for new research and development.

“Our custom analytic platforms are easily used by agribusinesses and others to transform and amplify limited research datasets into millions of ‘product by environment’ observations. These platforms can be used to measure the value and sustainability of new technology, not only in farmers’ fields, but also those under development in R&D labs”, said Bob McClure, FarmLink’s Chief Data Scientist. “In a very short period of time, we’ve been able to help significantly improve the way data inputs in a single research project are analysed and used to create predictive models with broad relevance.”

For example, instead of simply looking at small test plots to evaluate the product performance of a new fertiliser, one of FarmLink’s agribusiness partners shifted from relying on these individual text plots to a network of field data, analysed down to 150 sq ft, and then compared product performance using FarmLink’s advanced weather and yield productivity models to achieve a broader view of potential efficacy.

“By using the enhanced product performance data, we can model how the product is expected to perform, given the soil, weather and yield forecast at the zone level”, McClure said. In addition to helping to advance research findings, this granular level of analysis ultimately allows ag retailers and farmers to understand the likely economic benefit, field by field, before buying or applying a new product.

The first year FarmLink started collecting data, the company said it threw away two-thirds of the data because it didn’t meet its self-imposed quality standards

While inputs are often essential to ensuring yield, farmers also remain committed to ensuring the soil and water health of their lands. FarmLink’s data science was recently applied to helping understand areas of opportunity for land conservation on farms. Using a proprietary algorithm based on FarmLink’s yield, weather and soil indices, the company was able to reliably predict the effect of nitrate leaching in a given field at a zone level. This information is vital to both farmers and stakeholders in pinpointing which zones are the most economically and environmentally advantageous to preserve as conservation land. FarmLink’s ability to deliver these solutions has helped farmers, NGOs and governments prioritise land stewardship, and align on optimal long-term conservation efforts that improve the sustainability of agriculture overall.

Product innovation
As today’s global economic pressures continue to stress farm operations, experts believe precision technology must come with actionable, precision data to realise the full benefits. “At FarmLink, we believe farmers in rural communities around the world deserve access to the same level of technology-driven decision making tools present in other industries today”, said LeMay.

An Illinois farmer recently recounted that, when his grandfather started farming, he only needed two things: a good work ethic and a strong back. In 2016, this young farmer said, you also need reliable data science.

The first year FarmLink started collecting data, the company said it threw away two-thirds of the data because it didn’t meet its self-imposed quality standards. “We learned that, unless you have a reliable, repeatable, and managed end-to-end process, it is highly likely the quality of data collected will not be sufficiently accurate to be actionable. In essence – worthless to farmers”, LeMay said. “As an industry focused on achieving global food security, we must commit to the rigour of data collection, management and sharing at the highest standards. As we’ve imagined new tools for farmers and others across the food system, we’ve remained committed to these quality standards.”

In 2014, FarmLink introduced TrueHarvest, the industry’s first and most sophisticated yield benchmarking tool that allows farmers to compare and validate individual farm data at the zone level and across the farming operation. During the following two years, the company developed additional products to allow farmers and their advisors to use actionable data necessary to select and validate crop management decisions that address unique opportunities in each field. Introduced in 2015, Discovery provides a glimpse into land potential, and is designed to help non-technical farmers interact with data science for free. The company said its goal is to help drive adoption of data science tools across the industry by providing an easily accessible, high-quality product that builds trust in this new technology.

FarmLink also partnered with DTN and the Progressive Farmer to create MarketVision. This is a tool, powered by FarmLink, that gives farmers and land owners access to grain marketing technology in one convenient place. Farmers can use MarketVision for insights into when to sell their grain along with real-time updates on crop yield potential and risk management data. In fact, the product has shown a proven accuracy over a five-year period using millions of acres of yield data. In testing the tool, FarmLink plugged in real data from various farmers around the country. MarketVision, in most instances, was able to project corn yield within two bushels of the actual individual yields at the field level, providing a reliable base for marketing decisions.

Wide appeal
While the company’s offerings benefit US farmers today, the technology is applicable to agriculture worldwide, and helps create a common language to accelerate solutions. “FarmLink connects the dots to build technology that magnifies human intent and capability. These agtech platforms can inspire the next generation of agricultural innovators to make meaningful changes in global agriculture at the farm level”, said Rikin Gandhi, founder of Digital Green, a non-profit international development organisation that uses an innovative digital platform to bring together technology and social organisations to improve agriculture in rural communities in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

For example, the platform could prove to be invaluable in further improving productivity in Australia or evaluating land conservation in South America. It can be deployed to assess the value of range or pasture restoration, or evaluate specific land for agricultural or non-agricultural uses.

“As the agtech space continues to expand, FarmLink remains at the forefront of innovation. The next generation of farmers – from the US to eastern Europe to sub-Saharan Africa – will need technology and data science to prosper”, said LeMay. “FarmLink is committed to continuing to place new tools and innovation at their fingertips.”