If that sounds expensive, it is. But given the size of Bragança Agronegócios, 13,000 hectares, (50 square miles or 32,000 acres), and the volatility of commodity prices, Boscoli simply cannot afford to go without.
“With access to all this information, I see what’s happening daily in the field—where the machines are and what they are doing—and also in the markets,” he explains. “The soy market is crazy. You’ve got to watch for updates daily. If you don’t have real-time market data, it’s easy to do a bad deal.”
Plowing data, not soil
Gen Z’s investment in technology is likely to deepen for two reasons. First, the farmers’ operations are likely to get bigger, in keeping with decades of consolidation worldwide, and bigger farms are a lot more complex to manage. Principals can no longer circle their operations in two hours. Day to day tasks demand rafts of fulltime employees, not just family members.
Second, exponential leaps in data-capture spur ever greater reliance on digital tools that can amass, analyze, and model data to inform decision-making. A generation ago, digital yield maps transformed farming by capturing and processing farm-level data. Today, farmers are looking at layers of field-level data. Tomorrow? They’ll be capturing plant-level data.
That’s both a blessing and a curse for Gen Z farmers. They will likely rely less on intuition and more on decision-making tools and software. These tools will enable them check their instinct against the algorithm’s assessment of what will happen, and make a decision without emotional bias. Yet, because the farm is ever larger, there’s an enormous amount of information to manage.
Changing the narrative
Their use of social media, however, is what utterly distinguishes Generations Y and Z from their Boomer forebearers. By sharing every aspect of farm life over YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, they are rekindling the interest of consumers in where food comes from and how it is produced. Video parodies posted on YouTube by the Peterson Brothers, a trio of Kansas farmers consisting of Greg, 30, Nathan, 28, and Kendal, 25, garner millions of views. Boscoli’s personal Instagram feed of bean fields and monster trucks commands 37,500 followers, and Bragança Agronegócios commands another 11,800.
And these young farmers are using that following not merely to entertain, but also to educate. Cesinha Farias and Sailinha Farias, the twenty-something siblings behind @Jovensdoagro, young people from the farm, on Instagram, are a good example. Accompanying a snap of Cesinha crouching beneath a thicket of sugarcane is a post about the environmental benefits of ethanol.
Nothing could be more important to the future of agriculture than the positive influence these young farmers wield. With pictures and personal stories about farming and farm life, they’re chipping away at misconceptions and building trust with consumers. Trust based on values they share about sustainable production and a venture that spans generations. Post by post, they’re closing the relationship gap with consumers. In the not-too-distant future, they’ll have made us all followers.
If that sounds expensive, it is. But given the size of Bragança Agronegócios, 13,000 hectares, (50 square miles or 32,000 acres), and the volatility of commodity prices, Boscoli simply cannot afford to go without.
“With access to all this information, I see what’s happening daily in the field—where the machines are and what they are doing—and also in the markets,” he explains. “The soy market is crazy. You’ve got to watch for updates daily. If you don’t have real-time market data, it’s easy to do a bad deal.”
Plowing data, not soil
Gen Z’s investment in technology is likely to deepen for two reasons. First, the farmers’ operations are likely to get bigger, in keeping with decades of consolidation worldwide, and bigger farms are a lot more complex to manage. Principals can no longer circle their operations in two hours. Day to day tasks demand rafts of fulltime employees, not just family members.
Second, exponential leaps in data-capture spur ever greater reliance on digital tools that can amass, analyze, and model data to inform decision-making. A generation ago, digital yield maps transformed farming by capturing and processing farm-level data. Today, farmers are looking at layers of field-level data. Tomorrow? They’ll be capturing plant-level data.
That’s both a blessing and a curse for Gen Z farmers. They will likely rely less on intuition and more on decision-making tools and software. These tools will enable them check their instinct against the algorithm’s assessment of what will happen, and make a decision without emotional bias. Yet, because the farm is ever larger, there’s an enormous amount of information to manage.
Changing the narrative
Their use of social media, however, is what utterly distinguishes Generations Y and Z from their Boomer forebearers. By sharing every aspect of farm life over YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, they are rekindling the interest of consumers in where food comes from and how it is produced. Video parodies posted on YouTube by the Peterson Brothers, a trio of Kansas farmers consisting of Greg, 30, Nathan, 28, and Kendal, 25, garner millions of views. Boscoli’s personal Instagram feed of bean fields and monster trucks commands 37,500 followers, and Bragança Agronegócios commands another 11,800.
And these young farmers are using that following not merely to entertain, but also to educate. Cesinha Farias and Sailinha Farias, the twenty-something siblings behind @Jovensdoagro, young people from the farm, on Instagram, are a good example. Accompanying a snap of Cesinha crouching beneath a thicket of sugarcane is a post about the environmental benefits of ethanol.
Nothing could be more important to the future of agriculture than the positive influence these young farmers wield. With pictures and personal stories about farming and farm life, they’re chipping away at misconceptions and building trust with consumers. Trust based on values they share about sustainable production and a venture that spans generations. Post by post, they’re closing the relationship gap with consumers. In the not-too-distant future, they’ll have made us all followers.
