 Happy holidays. Thank you for joining the Private Property Farming podcast. My name is Mbali Nwokor once again, and we are streaming live from Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, from wherever you may be watching us or joining us today. Please feel free to comment, ask any questions, because today's topic is about technology. And we all know, especially now during the times of the global pandemic, COVID-19, how important technology is in our lives. But I think similarly, into the agricultural perspective, technology has completely changed the way in which we form. It has completely disrupted the way in which we produce our food, grow cattle, etc. And so I'm quite excited about today's topic. So again, feel free to keep engaging and asking questions specific to this topic today. But without further ado, let's get into it. I am solo today. And so I'm going to be covering the topic around technology completely on my own today. So I'm just really going to be talking on experience and just based on industry knowledge and how other farmers also use technology and make it a part of their daily lives and just use technology in such a way that it could really grow their agribusinesses or their farms. And so I think it's important to first understand why we need technology, right? Because farming such an old age industry and really has one that has just stood the test of time and has developed over centuries or decades ago. And when we're looking at 2020 today, technology is such a critical part in which we consume or maybe just run our farms, simply because consumers want to know how our food is grown and where it really comes from. So technology assists us firstly in the form of traceability, knowing where the food comes from, knowing where your food was produced over and above and where it comes from, and just directing things from the farm. So traceability is one in which one way in which we use technology really to help us make informed decisions about the food that we consume or how things were made. But most importantly, I think the reason why farmers need technology on their farm is to get better insights on their farms. And what I mean by that is that farmers need to know on any given day why it's important to use technology and why it's important to know what happens in your operations. Because for example, if you have a big farm where there's so many employees managing things at different times on the farm in different areas of the farm and you've got, yes, granted farm managers, but as a farm owner, you also want to know really what's happening at your farm at any given point in time. And so technology allows that. Furthermore, you also want to know what is happening on the farm from a production level. So whether you're raising cattle or have crops on the ground, you need to know, are your crops healthy? Is the soil good? Are we watering correctly? Are we fertilizing correctly? Are we using the right chemicals as well? And is it really helping grow our plants? The way in which our spraying programs are structured, is it really helping us from a production level? And so really technology provides insight. It also helps us to run our farms more efficiently and effectively. It streamlines processes. And also you could just keep abreast of all the activities and operations that happen on a farm on a daily basis. And so you could go back to those records. If there's a crisis on a farm and you want to really investigate where did I go wrong in my processes or in my operations? And so you could use technology to gather data, to record and store information that you could use in the next future or in the future when you want to really go back to those archives and understand really how your operations have grown over time. And so let's maybe tap into the different types of technologies that exist. Firstly, I think we have access to smartphones. So for any one of you that is farming that is a smartphone, you know, whether it's Apple or Samsung phone, you have access to a Play Store or the Google Store. And you could download apps that are specific to farming. And so, for example, for crop farmers, I know there's a very good app that I use, Tilo app, which allows you to record data. Any activities that are happening on farms. So for example, you could record your land preparation activity, the soil preparation activity when you're going to start planting, how you're irrigating and when you're irrigating, when you're starting to spray, when you're starting to fertilize your crops, you could record all that information stored and then exported into an Excel data. And you could have access to that information in such a way that it could make sense to you. And what's great about the app as well is that not only as a farm owner, you could also share that information with your farm managers or your supervisors on the farm or anybody you're allocating or giving access to to use that app. And you could, you know, just discuss over that information in a meeting and really assist you in terms of farming better. And that app is free to use currently. Also, there's another app called Cropalizer. You know, for all farmers, for the farmers who are just starting to farm, but really are not familiar with different pests and diseases that exist out there. Cropalizer will will be able to show you, for example, you go into the app and you say you're farming peppers, for example, and it could show you the different types of diseases or defects or pests that you are possibly will encounter throughout your production period that you might not know. And so it will show you maybe pictures of efforts. And if you walk onto the farm and you find that you've got some Sorry about that technical glitch. I am at the farm and the connection doesn't seem to be too stable or too strong today. So please, I hope you forgive me. And I'm really not sure where I had disconnected when I was speaking. And so I think I just try summarize the beginning just for anybody that may be joining. And it's just as for anybody that was watching just as a recap to say, you know, today's topic is really about how you can leverage off technology to make your farming life a lot more simpler or to elevate your your farm. And so I started off by saying that, you know, the reason why we're using using technology is simply because it is to help us to become more efficient as farmers and more effective to streamline our operations. And I really don't want you to think of technology as data or artificial intelligent or the internet of things and thinking that, geez, these things come at a pricey pricey price tag. But there are really technology products or apps available out there in the market that you could use as a farmer that is free or that is inexpensive, that could cost a couple of hundred rounds or a few thousand rounds and really won't break the bank. However, you know, I guess I guess at high level, then we can also look at things like the internet of things using drones in your everyday farming practices or farming operations and using very high level systems that could form part of your work function on the farm. But I just wanted to also give examples of technologies that are out there for farmers to use. And I think the most simplest ones are farming apps. And so there's a data record keeping farming app that I use called tiller app, which is T I double L O and tiller app is a free app that you could use for any farmer with your crop livestock or grain farmer. And basically what tiller app does is that it helps you as a farmer record and manage your data on your app. And so if you use to write things on a notepad or in a diary, every single activity that occurs on the farm in the past, you could use tiller as a reference to substitute that diary or that A4 book that you used to write on. But furthermore, what tiller does is that you could share that information with any farm managers or farm supervisors that you have on site or shared with other employees that you could give access to. And this information that is recorded, you know, you could use that information in your monthly meetings or weekly meetings that you have as a team to obviously schedule tasks for the week ahead or for the month ahead for your immediate teams as well. And so this information is shareable with a number of individuals. You could even download that information or extract that information in a form of Excel spreadsheet where you could actually view all your farm's activities or operations, for example, in that month. And you could make informed decisions in terms of how you really want to operate your farm in the month going forward or in the next quarter, etc. So that is just one app that you could use that it could assist you from a data or record keeping perspective. There's another app that I mentioned, which is Cropelizer. And that is for farmers that are really not familiar with all the different pests and diseases that are out there, especially specific to the commodity that you're farming. So for example, if you may be working in your farm and you're scouting and you start to see thrips or efforts on a leaf, and you're not sure that they are thrips or efforts, you could use Cropelizer and you input, for example, let's say you're farming peppers and you could go there, click on the paper link, and then it will just give you rundown of the different photos of pests that you may find that are typically attracted to pepper plants. And so if you see that, oh, this is efforts that you've just spotted, then it will give you a breakdown of the different type of chemicals that you could use to rectify or control or manage those efforts. But it will obviously recommend the chemicals or the right corrective ingredients to use, which is owned by the company that develops the Cropelizer app. And so I just also want to put a disclaimer going forward that all these companies or apps that I'm going to mention in today's live, I'm not fully recommending them or endorsing them or advertising them, but it's just apps or company names that I know that are out there in the market, you could find online. And it's just giving examples of technology tools that you could use in your everyday life on the farm. Another fantastic startup that is a fantastic South African based startup, that's what I wanted to say, is Aerobotics. And this is primarily for fruit tree farmers. So if you're growing avocados or citrus, et cetera, apples, Aerobotics is a great app to use. And basically what it does, it assists you to understand the health of your fruit trees, especially if you've got a big orchard. And, you know, it really doesn't make economic sense to really drive up and down the orchard and just basically diagnosing which tree is really in a good condition, as and when you're doing your scouting. So basically what Aerobotics does is that you could schedule a drone flight where they would come out onto your farm and then do a drone flight. And the information that could come out from the drone flight, for example, is it could tell you how many trees are in your orchard, how many trees are in a specific row or in a specific line on that orchard and how many trees are of good health, how many trees are in distress. And if you find out that there are certain trees that are in distress in that specific block or area on your farm or orchard, you can then go deeper and analyze that specific tree and identify what about it is making it not perform well as compared to the other trees. And therefore you can then detect whether it's a disease problem or if it's a pest problem and it will identify that, okay, your current tree is maybe affected by thrips, for example. And so then you would then be able to make an informed decision in terms of, okay, let me roll the spade, the specific tree, then instead of spraying the entire orchard. And so this is what you call precision farming. You are really treating the tree or the plant specific to its needs. So as opposed to before we had these technologies in the market, you would typically scout your farm on a daily basis or just follow through your spraying program or your fertilizing program and just treat every single plant or tree in a blanket approach. I know some farmers, I know we previously used to do this as well, where for example we knew that every Tuesday for example we would then fertilize with nitrogen and every Thursday we would spray for example. And so it would be spraying on the farm that irrespective of which crop it is, but we would just spray and we won't really investigate to do the crops or plants need any fertilizers today, you know. So this is the advantage of using technology and this is how technology has changed the way in which we farm today and so precision farming is definitely a lot more effective. It helps you reduce your operational costs on the farm so you don't really have to keep wasting fertilizers or any chemicals that you need to spray on the farm. You really are treating the plant as and really needs to be treated. Going back to irrigation as well, you know, there are very diverse range of automated irrigation systems that you could use on the farm today and there's many products that exist in the market such as Netafarm, Hortimex Grow, even a Rainbird solution, you know, that really is inexpensive. So I think any farmer could use these systems on the farm and basically what they could do is manage or control the EC or the PH that exists on the farm in the water, etc. They could detect your soil health. They could also automatically irrigate when they see that, okay, the soil is getting a bit dry, the plants are under the stress, they need to be watered and they could be watered efficiently. So for example, if you're putting two litres per hour per plant, it will give exactly two litres per hour per plant. And so these are all the information that you could input once off onto the system and that the system would run automatically. So basically you're telling your system what you're planting and how that plant needs to be treated and obviously this information will come from your agronomist and this is why I make reference every time in my videos to say you have to have a good relationship with all the important stakeholders in your business and agronomist is one such individual because they're the ones that help you plan out how you're going to start your production cycle and what your plants need and what yields you should be expecting from the specific production that you are growing in that season. And also I know I've made a number of reference to crop production but I also know that there's a very good technology app that exists out there in the markets and that is established by the awareness company. It's also another South African startup and for livestock farmers you could really track and trace your cattle, your goat, your sheep, where it is that they're grazing, where it is that they're drinking from and especially this is very convenient for farmers that have thousands of hectares for example on their farms and just to just to break it down a bit for example you could use the Hydra I think it's a system that they call it it's the Hydra model of the Hydra system and what it does basically it tracks where the livestock are grazing. It could track and detect the security of that livestock. You could always be informed as a farmer of the number of livestock that you have. If a specific cattle or cow is sick you could really track its movements in terms of where did it last graze, where did it last drink water, you could go test that water and just try to investigate of any any any problems that have might occurred with this cattle that has obviously led to it being sick and so from there on once you find what the problem is then you obviously can correct or really assist that that cow or the cattle accordingly based on whatever the problem whatever problem it has and so these are a number of technologies and just simple examples of how you could really farm better, have full control and manage your farm a lot better and basically to derive information and data from all these different technologies and tools and apps that you're using on a daily basis to basically make informed decisions in the next future and it could be the future could be in the next day or week or month or next season for example but this is what's available out there and I really don't want you to feel like it's quite overwhelming and that all these companies that exist in the market or solutions that exist in the market come at a quite high price but you know I think every farmer has their different needs based on the size of the farm and so you as a farmer need to ensure that you are using technology that speaks to your specific need and your operations on the farm and I know sometimes always alludes to technology being at the tech but you know this when you're a farmer you essentially are running a business and so I know another one major problem that exists in agriculture today is that farmers don't have good financial records or they don't do their monthly management accounts. One such technology that you're producing a business that is nothing to do with specific primary production is accounting apps that exist in the market so that could assist you from an invoicing perspective, from a bookkeeping perspective, managing and controlling your company's finances, you could use sage, creek books or wave, they also are available. You could use the apps, you could use the company or the services via an app or a desktop but I think because farmers are always on the field on the ground if you're doing your own accounting for example and you have a delivery and you want to send an invoice to your client you could simply do that or invoice and complete that invoice and send it to a client at the palm of your hand and so I think it's important as farmers to think with our business hat on and really remind ourselves that you are running a business essentially at the end of the day and the importance of using this technology is that firstly it's really there to make your life easier as a farmer. It helps you to create insights in your farm where you're going wrong, what actions you can correct if you see that your staff is underperforming or your production is really not serving you well, you're not getting the right tonnage, you're not getting the right yields at the end of the harvest and this is the reason why we use technology today and there are free apps that you could read, definitely trial and test and I think it's important for every farmer to just make use of it and so I hope that I've managed to cover this topic quite extensively but just to sum it up really I think if you're going to if you want to go into farming today you have to use some form of technology to really aid you and compete I suppose in the marketplace and really shop around and really engage with a number of stakeholders, a number of services and a number of companies that exist out there, track and monitor the performance of the services that exist out there and make an informed decision of whether or not this specific technology that you're using does it assist your business, does it cut down for example a number of activities that you have to do on a daily basis and so yeah I think this is how this is how you could really get the most out of your farming venture by leveraging of technology, by leveraging of the partners that you have in your every business because they too also use technology and so for example if you don't want to use an app you could really constantly liaise or speak to your gardener or your sales rep if you're having a problem, you take a picture of an effort and they could tell you that this is an effort, this is how you control it, use x milliliters of this chemical and the problem will be solved so basically leverage of the partnerships that you have because they too use technology to make informed decision on how they could also better assist farmers in their operations because everybody wants to grow at the end of the day and so thank you so much for watching today's live and once again I really apologise for the technological glitch that we had earlier on but I trust that you will be joining me again on Thursday a day before Christmas and I will be covering another topic so be sure to look out on our social media pages what that topic will be on Thursday and again if any questions about today's topic or discussion please feel free to ask any questions and we will respond accordingly however that is it from me today and I will see you on Thursday take care