Foreword Stefan Duerr EkoNiva News Edition No 70

When previously asked about an optimal farm size, I used to say, ‘30,000 ha’. I would probably still think so but for the new AI farming technologies. We purchased our first farm in 2002, and we were already tapping into digital farm management options then. I asked my university friends to help me bring various gauges and devices from Germany, and we tried to put them to use on the farm. Frankly speaking, I was looked upon as a complete idiot. Hardly anyone believed that a tractor could connect to a satellite and receive data. To be fair, our digitalization attempts were not much use at that time: AI technology was still in its infancy and the tools we used were primitive.

However, we were far from giving up. In 2008, we even started working on our own software, but with little success. Nevertheless, wе have always been keeping abreast of the latest developments in this field. Within the past six - seven years, there has been a major breakthrough in digital engineering. Modern challenges and growing scales call for more sophisticated solutions. Now we farm over 600,000 ha in 13 regions and possess a herd of 200,000 head, including 100,000 cows. It is impossible to manage such a large-scale enterprise without smart farming systems. Before the digital era, it used to take a huge amount of paperwork and time to get the operational data to the data base. First, tasks were distributed to operators, then the operational data was collected from each machine and transferred to the data base, and after that accountants had to prepare a report.

Now, we can monitor every machine remotely. We know exactly where each of them is, what kind of work has been done and how much material has been used. Another important advantage of AI tools is that they make operator’s work easier: GPS navigation and cognitive mapping save them a lot of time and effort. This means less fatigue, better performance and a higher salary.

Precision farming systems are also essential to a modern agricultural producer. They help farmers to understand why yields differ within the same field and what this variation has to do with the weather conditions and the chemical properties of the soil. Of course, extensive statistical data is required for the system to work properly and generate a correct algorithm for a certain field. In this case, the smart software will learn to understand fields of any size – from 100 hectares to hundreds of thousands of hectares – offering incredible opportunities for efficient farming! It is important to remember that state-of-the-art technologies are not there to replace people, their main purpose is to facilitate people’s work and help them make the right decisions based on reliable data. Precision agriculture enables farmers to deliver outstanding results. I think it is quite possible to achieve a 10-15% crop yield increase and reduce costs by 20-30%. Russia has already reached quite a high level of digitalization. Our company uses the world’s most advanced intellectual solutions and conducts its own research and development in smart farming.

Stefan DUERR, President of EkoNiva Group