Precision Agriculture Has Its Cassandra. His Name Is Kevin.
The push to embrace precision agriculture is transforming food production in the U.S. It’s also turning farmers into software-bound tenants of OEMs, warns Kevin Kenney. But is anyone listening?
Farming in the United States is in the midst of a major transformation - the biggest since the arrival of the Fordson tractor (yes, “that Ford”) and mechanized agriculture more than a century ago.
The transformative technology back then was the internal combustion engine, which allowed farmers to power a wide range of new machines and mechanize previously manual implements from tractors and reapers to combine harvesters.
The transformative technology now? Precision agriculture, which is a catch-all term that describes a constellation of technologies that are transforming how farming is done and how farmers and ranchers tend both crops and livestock. Among the critical components of precision agriculture: Internet- and GPS connected agricultural equipment, highly accurate remote sensors, “big data” analytics and cloud computing.
Technology fueling automation
The new capabilities that these technologies enable are prodigious - and would seem other worldly to farmers even two decades ago. There are, already, autonomous tractors controllable via a mobile app and capable of tilling fields without any driver in the cab (e.g. Sabanto). Then there are “smart spraying” systems that use arrays of cameras and artificial intelligence to identify weeds, crops and soil to place fertilizer (or weed killer) with surgical accuracy, thereby reducing the amount of chemicals used (and the environmental damage caused by their use).
Such technologies have been a focus of major ag equipment makers for years, and you can trace the evolution of the space simply by looking at the string of acquisitions and business partnerships penned by giants like John Deere, AGCO, CNH Industrial and others. Those include recently signed deals like the one Deere struck last month with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to tap that company’s Starlink satellite-based broadband network to provide precision agriculture features to farmers in remote, rural communities that lack broadband access. It also includes the agricultural equipment giant AGCO’s announcement in September, 2023 that it was taking an 85% stake in Trimble, a heretofore OEM-agnostic provider of software and services that support farmers that are applying precision agriculture technologies. That deal was valued at $2 billion.
The (hidden) cost of progress
As with any technological revolution, however, there are both “winners” and “losers” in the emerging age of precision agriculture. After all: the embrace of mechanized agriculture a century ago sharply drove down the need for farm workers from nearly 14 million in the United States in 1910 to half that in the mid 1960s and around 3 million by the turn of the millennium. The number of independent farms dropped also: from more than 6 million to just over 2 million during the same period.
Precision agriculture, once broadly adopted, promises to further reduce the need for human labor to run farms. (Autonomous equipment means you no longer even need drivers!) However, the risks it poses go well beyond a reduction in the agricultural work force.
First, as the USDA notes on its website: the scale and high capital costs of precision agriculture technology tend to favor large, corporate producers over smaller farms.
Then there are the systemic risks to U.S. agriculture of an increasingly connected and consolidated agriculture sector, with a few major OEMs having the ability to remotely control and manage vital equipment on millions of U.S. farms. That includes the risk of disruption due to cyber attacks on precision farming hardware, software and services - an issue that agricultural equipment makers are scrambling to address, but reluctant to discuss. (Listen to my podcast interview with the hacker Sick Codes, who reverse engineered a John Deere display to run the Doom video game for insights into the company’s internal struggles with cybersecurity.)
Finally, there are the reams of valuable and proprietary environmental and operational data that farmers collect, store and leverage to squeeze the maximum productivity out of their land. For centuries, such information resided in farmers’ heads, or on written or (more recently) digital records that they owned and controlled exclusively, typically passing that knowledge and data down to succeeding generation of farm owners.
Precision agriculture technology greatly expands the scope, and granularity, of that data. But in doing so, it also wrests it from the farmer’s control and shares it with equipment manufacturers and service providers - often without the explicit understanding of the farmers themselves, and almost always without monetary compensation to the farmer for the data itself. In fact, the Federal Government is so concerned about farm data they included a section (1619) on “information gathering” into the latest farm bill.
Over time, this massive transfer of knowledge from individual farmers or collectives to multinational corporations risks beggaring farmers by robbing them of one of their most vital assets: data, and turning them into little more than passive caretakers of automated equipment managed, controlled and accountable to distant corporate masters.
Precision Ag’s Cassandra
That’s a dark view of the future - and one that its hard to hear over the “rah rah rah!” of precision agriculture’s (corporate funded) boosters. But its not like nobody sees the writing on the wall, or is sounding the alarm bell.
Kevin Kenney grew up on a dairy farm in Plainview, Nebraska. After getting his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska’s College of Agricultural Engineering, Kevin went to work developing alternative fuel systems for farms, and helped to develop the first 'Rural CNG Fill Station' in Nebraska serving the Frontier COOP's David City, Nebraska site. He works full time as an Alternative Fuel Systems Engineer at Grassroots Energy LLC.
He has been a vocal advocate for a “right to repair” agricultural equipment, even appearing as a guest on Louis Rossman’s YouTube show to talk about farming and the right to repair. Kevin is also one of the loudest voices warning about the dangers posed by the increasing consolidation in the agricultural equipment industry and its wholesale export of proprietary farm data. Left unchecked, such trends could spell the end of small and independent farm and farmers, while leaving our agriculture sector in the hands of onerous, exploitive and unaccountable monopolies.
Those warnings, thus far, have gone unheeded. In fact, Kenney has mostly received hostile responses, or silence from the individuals and agencies he has approached with his concerns. That makes Kevin something akin to a modern day “Cassandra,” the Greek mythological character who was granted the gift of prophecy by the god Apollo, but whose punishment for refusing his advances was that nobody would believe her warnings. Cassandra’s curse was to see future events, but be unable to use that knowledge to alter those events or prevent them from happening.
The concept of “Cassandras” isn’t a new one. Heck, the noted cybersecurity expert and former Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clark even wrote a book about the phenomenon, Warnings, that profiled a number of individuals who warned (loudly) about looming disasters - only to be ignored. They include Yukinobu Okamura, the Japanese seismologist who tried in vain to warn the government about the risk of tsunamis destroying reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, or Harry Markopolos, the certified financial advisor that tried, unsuccessfully, to convince the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that storied New York investor Bernie Madoff was actually running a Ponzi scheme - years before the $65 billion scheme finally fell apart.
In the following interview, conducted via e-mail, Fight to Repair News dug deep into the questions and doubts that loom around precision agriculture. We asked Kevin to describe his background and expand on his concerns about the risks that precision agriculture exposes. His responses to our questions are below, with some minor editing for clarity.
Interview: Kevin Kenney
F2R: Start with a brief history of you and farming (growing up, professionally) including what you do now (day job) and how you've seen the ag equipment market change over time.
Kevin: I grew up on a Dairy Farm in Plainview, Nebraska. Among milking cows and feeding the yearling steers, we had all sorts of poultry, some hogs and sad to say…the ‘Milk Goat’ we had to hand milk each morning because Dad liked the milk…not the most fun job!
I had two older brothers, but somehow I was tabbed by Dad to be the ‘tractor kid’ who was given most of the tractor driving jobs and most importantly, the ‘REPAIR JOBS’. I had absolutely no clue how to do anything as a kid but managed to get stuff fixed by trial/error as well as asking the neighbor, Jim Goetz, who was a trained mechanic who was always ready with a smile to help and/or give advice on how to keep stuff working. Back then, neighbors helped each other. To raise crops, we had to:
Disk and/or plow the fields prior to spring planting
Plant mostly corn and soybeans in the spring; very similar to today’s main crops
Cultivate the weeds out of the crop rows; usually two trips over the fields. No herbicides available in the early ‘70s.
Harvest Crops in the Fall. Done with a Combine.
Today, I work primarily as a Precision Ag Technology Salesman as well as a Precision Ad Open Source Technology inventor/advocate. While I am not a computer coder, I try to define and pre-sell the concepts of why/how Open Source platforms are actually more secure/private as well as cost beneficial in the long run.
My experience within agricultural equipment systems is divided within two time periods:
Mechanical Era: In my life, this was the first half of my life; 1964-1994. Tractors were fixed with ‘books’ they called Service Manuals and specific tools which were almost entirely mechanical. The electrical components weren’t computerized prior to 1994 for the most part.
Electronic Era: The 2nd half of my life runs fro 1995 thru the present. We have witnessed an overall unfriendly scenario for consumers when looking at resiliency of the farm repair capabilities and overall control/ownership rights. Each manifestation of what OEMs call ‘improvement’ consists of ever more complicated electronic systems wrapped up with TPMs (technology protection measures) which while convenient, remove consumer ownership as well as control/repairability from tractors.
This is my biggest worry moving to the next phase which will include robotic farming. While we can all agree that it’s coming…the question is who will own these robots? Will there be a competitive solution that is independent from tractor OEMS’ ‘Cabal on Tractors’....i.e. unfair trade practices within the industry…’Collusion’....’FTC Anti-Trust Laws’, etc.
F2R: How would you describe what "precision agriculture" is? Is it different from just "tractors running software and connected to the Internet" which are the norm these days?
Kevin: To the average farmer, ‘precision agriculture’(PA) is a data-set of reports outlining his farms’:
Soil Sample Reports
Seeding Prescriptions
Fertility Prescriptions
Pesticide Application Prescriptions
Yield Results mapped within each field
All types of Livestock Data
Breeding
Vaccinations
Feeding Rations
Final Weight to Market reports
It is very important to note that each/all of the above values are considered ‘VERY CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION’ to most farmers. They actually don’t have any idea that tractor companies are stealing their data simply because they’re using the tractor’s telematic systems which came factory installed on these tractors.
Precision Ag IS NOT just "tractors running software and connected to the Internet". I would say it has become the farm’s ‘Trade Secrets’ from multiple types of ‘machine generated data’ cited within the John Deere Telematics agreement. It becomes auto-entered data for decision making for:
Next year’s agronomy program
This year’s tax information
Financials for obtaining operating notes from bankers
Long term planning for land acquisition and farm improvements
F2R: What are the upsides and downsides of precision agriculture as it is being marketed to farmers today? How could precision ag technology be abused by large equipment makers or tech firms (or both)?
Kevin: The upsides:
Faster real-time data generation
More accurate agronomic operations from variable rate seeds/fertility to more detailed yield results within good and poor areas within each farm.
The downsides:
Fertilizers and Seeds have gone up exponentially in price over the past 30 years of the ‘Electronic Era’ (1995 - present).
1995 Seed Corn = $60/bag* / 2023 Seed Corn = $300/bag* (500% Increase | 1 bag = 80,000 seeds)
1995 Anhydrous = $250/ton / 2022 Anhydrous = $1400/Ton (560% Increase | Source)
Price of a Dollar inflation since 1995 = 105.85%
Yields have not:
1995 Corn Yield = 120 Bushels/acre
2023 Corn Yield = 180 Bushels/acre - 33% Yield Increase
As you can see, the ‘Electronic Era’ has resulted in substantially increased costs to farm with marginal increases in corn yield average (1995-2023).
Tractor Costs have also gone up faster than inflation:
1978 - 130 HP John Deere 4440 cost = ~$23,000 (as I recall)
2023 - 130 HP John Deere 6130M cost = $163,000 (Source)
Tractor cost increase from 1978-2023 = 708%, overall inflation 1978-2023 = 381%. That means that tractor costs have about doubled, relative to inflation, for the same-size tractor power in the Electronic Era (708%/381%) = 186% increase in cost
‘Large equipment makers have evolved into Tech Firms. They’re the same according to Mr. Julian Sanchez, the director of precision agriculture for John Deere, who is quoted saying “it is pretty safe to call John Deere a software company.” (Source)
The issue here is with the tractor manufacturers who are illegally ‘tying’ their repairs and data-centers to the factory installed firmware; thus they enable themselves as the single option for farmers to get tractors repaired and stream data within their ‘closed walled engineered’ tractor cab telematics.
It’s probably more profitable to get the data off a new tractor vs actual profit on manufacturing the tractor. This is the main problem…data theft.
F2R: How is the Federal Government/Agriculture department promoting precision agriculture to farmers? What, in your mind, is missing from their push to embrace precision agriculture?
Kevin: The Feds have tried. For example in 2016, the DOJ sued to stop the acquisition of Precision Planting (owned by Monsanto) by John Deere. Instead, one of the ‘Tractor Cabal’ Members, AGCO Corporation, purchased Precision Planting.
In other words: the DOJ’s intervention was successful, but accomplished absolutely nothing for consumers. AGCO is doing the same kinds of data-theft that John Deere, as far as I am concerned. Their recent acquisition of Trimble is not being stopped by the DOJ but it should be. The risks are the same: that it will limit competition and eventually drive up prices. Trimble has historically been one of the leaders in innovations in Precision Ag Technology…not anymore: they’re part of the ‘Tractor Cabal’.
Also, the USDA is sending out grants for the AG Data COOP. This grant initiative by the USDA attempts to “create a secure cyber framework, supported by appropriate policy and regulations, to enable efficient producer access to precision-ag data assembled by ag equipment, sensors, drones and satellites.”
The MAIN PROBLEM HERE is that 70% or more of the Precision Ag Data coming off tractors, combines and applicators come off- and thru John Deere implements scattered throughout the USA. The dominance of John Deere in precision ag technology and data gathering amounts to a monopoly, from what I can see.
Practically, that means any data that goes thru the USDA’s AG Data COOP has already been compromised. The professors getting grants from the USDA don’t want to talk about this, in my view. They’d rather just catch the funds and continue with the status quo. That’s very disappointing. The missing part, as I see it, is that the federal government primarily depends on academia (i.e. professors sitting behind desks) to construct programs to help farmers. That failure to acknowledge the theory vs realities of farming limits any USDA initiative’s potential.
F2R: You've been a strong proponent of the agricultural right to repair. Would winning a national right to repair agricultural equipment resolve the questions/problems you have around?
Kevin: Yes! We simply want the basic consumer rights we had back in the ‘Mechanical Era’. Any manufacturer left to their own devices will take a Monopoly scenario if the market, laws and regulators allow it to happen. With electronics, prior laws in the ‘Mechanical Era’ could not foresee and/or predict these monopolistic ‘tying’ efforts by the ag manufacturers. Regulation is the only way to stop this monopoly on Ag Equipment and Precision Ag Data Theft.
F2R: You have warned repeatedly about manufacturers co-opting farm data without farmers being aware of it. What should farmers (and policymakers) understand about that?
Kevin: First, we need to acknowledge that there are existing laws on the books which for whatever reason, are not being enforced.
The FTC should immediately start an investigation into John Deere and the rest of the ‘Tractor Cabal’ to see to what extent farmers’ farm data security and privacy are being compromised. This directly affects national food security because if thousands- or tens of thousands of tractors’ are hacked and disabled or their data is lost, crops left to rot in the fields would lead to bare shelves at the grocery store.
Farmers need to have clear and practical information about these issues. But that is being thwarted by so called ‘Farmer Commodity Groups’ like Farm Bureaus, etc. I think our universities have also been delinquent in grasping and warning farmers about the data-theft being perpetrated on farmers’ operations throughout the United States and other countries by makers of precision agricultural equipment.
F2R: Companies like John Deere and Case IH state publicly that their position is that "farmers own their data." What are we missing or what is not being said?
Kevin: While it's true that companies such as John Deere and Case IH affirm the principle that farmers own their data, the reality of their policies complicates this assertion significantly.
In the fine print of John Deere's telematics agreements, for instance, it's stated that the company reserves the right to collect, share, and export both machine and personal data for various purposes, including sending it outside U.S. jurisdictions. This essentially undermines the notion of ownership, as it suggests a broad license for the company to use the data in ways that may not align with the interests or expectations of the farmers themselves.
Moreover, the ability of farmers to opt out by disabling the telematics systems on their equipment is not a straightforward solution. Many are unaware of this possibility or its implications due to a lack of information from local dealerships, agricultural extension agents, and other sources. This lack of awareness is not accidental; there is a clear benefit for these companies in maintaining access to and control over this valuable data. It's crucial to distinguish between the concepts of data privacy and data ownership in this context.
Data ownership implies control over how data is used and shared, yet what we see in practice is a situation where farmers' control over their data is severely limited by the terms set forth in these telematics agreements. The assertion of ownership by the farmer becomes largely nominal when companies retain the right to use the data almost at will.
This situation represents a significant shift from the agricultural practices pre-2011, before the advent of Mobile Telematic Gateways (MTGs) in agricultural equipment, which allowed for this level of data capture and analysis. The introduction of these technologies into farm equipment has brought about a paradigm shift in how agricultural data is managed, one that raises serious questions about privacy, consent, and the genuine meaning of ownership of precision ag data on John Deere and Case IH platforms.
F2R: Have you brought your concerns to the attention of federal or state officials? The Agriculture Dept. etc.? What response have you gotten?
Kevin: I have spoken to a federal ‘Three Letter Agency’ about this but am advised not to discuss details. We have sent complaints to several midwestern states attorneys general, but have heard of no action to protect farmers to date.
F2R: Given that we want the benefits of precision agriculture, what controls need to be in place to make sure that farmers get the benefits of the technology but are protected from the risks?
Kevin: I would first recommend the USDA come forth and demand a choice for farmers, for example: to use firmware they bought rather than the ‘factory installed’ firmware provided by the OEM. This ‘2nd choice’ would, for example, allow a farmer to establish connectivity with his or her own cloud and/or trusted advisor’s server.
This would be transparent to all parties and securely distribute and store the ‘machine and personal data’ that, today, companies like John Deere collect before letting the farmer see any of it.
This isn’t ‘Rocket Science’. The USDA should be embarrassed to spend $4 million in Grant Funding for the AG Data COOP but not make sure the precision ag data is secured prior to sending this data to its cloud storage server. Farmers deserve better.
This has to happen or no one will know about the threat to farmers. Guys like me will be drowned out in the static related to this subject. Without reform, we will have a few companies like John Deere, Cargill, ADM, etc. controlling the robots doing the farming in less than 5 years.
In fact, I worry that it may be too late already because over 10 years of data has already been taken from farmers under the terms of John Deere’s MTG-Telematics and similar End User License Agreements (EULAs). Going forward, we need to ‘unwind’ these kinds of agreements and make sure any data that manufacturers and precision ag firms currently have is returned to farmers so that there can be equal market opportunities for consumers, farmers, manufacturers and other firms.
In the same 1961 farewell address where President Eisenhower warned about the threat of the “military industrial complex,” he also warned that “public policy itself” could become a “captive of a scientific technological elite.” This warning parallels what’s going on with computerized systems being sold ‘factory installed’...’factory controlled’ to unsuspecting farmers.
The consequences of that are dire. Soon, robots will be replacing farmers who are -at best- only tolerated today. Companies like John Deere will use their access to data collected from millions of farms - the farmers’ vital trade secrets- to arm their farm robots, even as those companies shift from business models based on sales of equipment to farmers to App Store style subscriptions that give them even more control of markets.
As we’ve seen in previous generations: we will all pay the price of this unchecked market concentration. Farmers will pay higher prices and want for choices and the kinds of market competition that keeps the cost of operating a business low. Entrepreneurs and small businesses that might have found their fortune providing new products and services to farmers will find themselves shut out by all powerful incumbents. City folks who buy groceries will pay for this ‘Tractor Cabal,’ as well in the form of higher food prices.