Can I please have a little more common sense?

A great deal has already been said and written about precision farming. Also on Boerenbusiness† The business community benefits, the government benefits and hopefully the agricultural entrepreneur too. That's what it's all for after all. But, it is gradually being buried under a torrent of precision farming. Can it please with a little more common sense?

It actually started with your press release from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, on Monday 13 February. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is making a total of eight million euros available to set up a 'National Experimental Garden for Precision Agriculture'. Meanwhile, the provinces of Zeeland and Drenthe are engaged in a battle over who can become the gardener. The message talks about experiment rooms† Simply; test farms that want to get started with agricultural technology. I can relate to that a bit.

What I do not agree with are the terms HighTech 2 Feed the World, technostarters agri-horti-food-tech and accelerators (for horticulture). What is it with precision farming and weird words? Can't we approach the whole thing in a sober Dutch way? A little more common sense and a little less show behaviour.

In another news item At the end of January, the national government showed that the agri & food sector accounted for almost 2016 billion euros in 94. The share of technology, in the form of knowledge and technology, accounts for 9 billion euros. That is a record and 2,2 percent above the 2015 level.

In the meantime, the farmer just has to put it all into practice. For a small club – well-known names in agriculture by now – this is both a hobby and a necessity. However, the majority continues to focus on common sense. Not location-specific, but with the lowest costs. Government incentives are an excellent measure to get the message across and improve technology. That can go fast sometimes. But, isn't the government overshooting its target?

In addition to chic electronic language, the government likes to think big. Also with subsidies. In practice, this comes down to a few investing in a field sprayer of more than one tonne or complicated monitoring equipment for the climate. A relatively simple investment of a few weather stations or a row injector falls below the investment threshold and must be made unnecessarily expensive and complex to be eligible.

While the revolution must come from below? And the companies that have all bought a new field sprayer with GPS and all kinds of bells and whistles. How do they apply it? Is a foliage killer or liquid fertilizer actually applied on a site-specific basis? I think not and many with me. On the one hand, because in many cases technology is not ready for practice at all. Precise dosing per square meter with your syringe, who can do it? And on the other hand, because we don't even know where to put more or less.

So it's high time for common sense. Knowledge from the government, from agricultural consultants, manufacturers and of course from the farmer. Start with the basics before launching all kinds of futuristic plans. That's nice, and it will probably generate many subsidy pots, but do we ultimately help Dutch agriculture move forward? Probably not.

Niels van der Boom

Niels van der Boom is a senior market specialist for arable crops at DCA Market Intelligence. He mainly makes analyses and market updates about the potato market. In columns he shares his sharp view on the arable sector and technology.

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