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“Agri-preneurship”: The How, What, Where and Why of Digital literacy on Farms and Ranches

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Why improve digital literacy?

With the global population projected to reach over 9 billion in 2050 there will be a significant increase in the demand for food. Production is not the only concern; although agricultural output is currently enough to feed the world, 821 million people still suffer from hunger. The agri-food sector remains critical for livelihoods and employment, accounting for 28% of the entire global workforce and within the US dairy sector specifically, it supports ~2 million, mainly rural jobs.

As the world population grows, the need for food production needs to grow. Historically, agriculture has undergone a series of revolutions that have driven efficiency, yield, and profitability to previously unattainable levels, which have helped sustain the world’s population of today. It is forecasted that in this next decade a ‘digital agricultural revolution’ will be the newest shift that could help ensure production agriculture meets the needs of the global population into the future.

The rural U.S. economy is changing as traditional employment sectors rapidly advance in the adoption of digital tools, which agriculture too is in the beginning of adopting these technologies. Agriculture has been traditionally a mechanical labor-intensive industry, that is now stepping into a rapid digital revolution within this decade. But the transition to digital agriculture has highlighted a growing need to bridge the digital skills gap and prepare rural workers for new roles in the workforce that are classified as “middle skills,” or “civil data scientist” and “civil data engineers”, which will take improving digital literacy levels across our farm and ranch workforce.

Digitalization will change every part of the agri-food chain. Management of resources throughout the system can become highly optimized, individualized, intelligent, and anticipatory. It will function in real-time in a hyper-connected way, driven by big data. Value chains will become traceable and coordinated at the most detailed level whilst different fields, crops, ecosystems, and individual animals can be accurately managed to their own optimal prescriptions, with an overview by the data owner, their teams, and necessary service and support providers. Digital agriculture will create systems that are highly productive, predictive, and adaptable to changes such as those caused by climate change or events that may cause animal welfare incidents. This, in turn, could lead to greater food security, profitability, and sustainability across farms and ranches

Data ownership and the democratization of agricultural data at the farm level need to be further understood and defined so that the value of big data can be returned to rural communities and not increase the rural and urban wealth/ digital divide. The importance of farms and ranches as they are the data owners is part of the future to sustainability and a life worth living for all livestock animals, and we need to equip the data owners with the right and necessary data literacy skills, which is what will move agriculture into the future and speed up the rate at which we solve some of our greatest challenges on farms and ranches. Digital literacy is a real issue in society at large; a lack of digital literacy may make important societal and business functions very hard or even impossible to use.

Cybersecurity and its importance as we increase the number of data systems and platforms that operate within your farm or ranch business represents an important challenge. The threats that are seen in so many sectors today are the same threats posed to our food production and agricultural systems; data theft, stealing resources, reputation loss, destruction of equipment, or gaining an improper financial advantage over a competitor. This requires the notion of digital literacy to be interpreted in a broader sense and recognized as an important skill that is greatly needed on-farm today.

Improving security and the ability to stop and trigger the necessary security protocols, should there be a threat to the farm or ranch’s digital systems. The on-farm team is now part of the front lines in cybersecurity and it’s imperative they understand the systems on the farm or ranch.

What is Digital Literacy?

There is no generally accepted definition of digital literacy; definitions differ between contexts. The complex nature of the concept allows for various interpretations. A neutral definition was provided by UNESCO in 2018:

“Digital literacy is the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship. It includes competences that are variously referred to as computer literacy, ICT literacy, information literacy and media literacy.”

Digital literacy is a term that traditionally describes the extent to which a person is able to use interactive digital devices for living and working, such as computers and smartphones, as well as services delivered through these devices. The advent of the digital society at large and electronic business, specifically in the past decades, has broadened the use of digital devices beyond the isolated uses of working and simple communication. This has created digital ecosystems in which workers and consumers are embedded to various degrees, such as social media platforms or integrated shopping and media platforms. This embedding implies that a traditional, narrow notion of digital literacy needs to be extended and made more precise. For this purpose, the related concept of digital dexterity, digital proficiency, and digital awareness are steps to extended digital literacy. These are described as follows:  

  1. Digital dexterity describes the level to which an individual can handle or operate digital devices or services from a physical perspective; it refers to physical skills without a specific goal direction. i.e., This is picking up the phone or laptop and being able to turn it on, use the interface or mouse.
  2. Digital proficiency describes the level to which an individual can use digital devices or services in an effective and efficient way to reach specific goals (either of the personal, social, or business kind); it brings reasons to use one’s digital dexterity. i.e., using apps or platforms or creating spreadsheets or word-processed documents using a phone or laptop and begin to input needed information or receive information from these digital devices and services.
  3. Digital awareness describes the level to which an individual can understand the context and consequences of using digital devices or services (either of personal, social, or business kinds); it generally contextualizes digital proficiency. i.e., Ensuring that the app, or documents are secure in the laptop or phone, improving data input to a system so that an insight or report can be improved, seeing errors or irregularities within a system, or ability to deploy tools to solve the problem or anticipate another similar event.
Figure 1. Components of Extended Digital Literacy.

Where do you begin with sharpening your digital literacy skills?

Starter and beginner levels

On farms and ranches today, we are already doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of data collection and using digital systems, we just need to coordinate those systems, the team, and resources we have across the facility, begin to conduct them in a way that allows you, the data owner and your team, to get the greatest performance out of your farm tools and systems.

Much like the software in our phones or computers our digital systems on-farm or ranch are going to need the same software, firmware, system updates that we routinely conduct, this includes a place where you can download the digital tools you need to make the device or systems more functional to your information needs and decision support.

As we increase AgriTech across the farm and ranch, we need to deploy this same long-term strategy as with our computers and phones, which allows for continuous improvement, the ability for routine updates, and flexible management and reporting with all on-farm or ranch digital systems and tools. Meeting this uptake in digital tools with the necessary digital literacy skills is what will place you as a leader in the ‘digital agricultural revolution.

Establishing a digital agriculture ecosystem requires an enabling environment for innovation by farmers and “agri-preneurs” that will be at the farm or ranch level. Younger members of the farm or ranch team have a particular role to play in this process, as they often have the advantage of already having the three core components of extended digital literacy and the capacity for innovative solutions, but all can improve or begin their digital literacy levels no matter their age or education. Beginning to integrate digital topics into educational programs allows for a greater understanding of the uses of digital tools and the skills to create them is imperative within livestock agriculture.

Three key enablers are: the use of the internet, mobile and social networks among farmers and agricultural extension officers, digital skills among the rural population, and a culture that encourages digital “agri-preneurship” and innovation. With the rise of high-speed internet connections and web-enabled smartphones, mobile apps, social media, voice-over-internet phones, and digital engagement platforms have significant potential to improve and transform access to information and services for those in rural areas, which is changing how we react, support, treat, prevent, or cultivate on our farms and ranches.

This does include some of the simple things as a first step, like auditing and mapping out your data systems and platforms, the deployment of different user logins, two-factor authentication, the ability to add new team members to your network, routinely updating/subscribing to an antivirus/anti-malware program, ensuring that your operating system and application software is the most up to date, from there it’s only onward and upward.

There is an abundant amount of online training programs for basic computer handling like the European Computer Driving License (ECDL) or the international computer driver’s License (ICDL) programs. Introduced in 2013, the new ECDL/ ICDL framework is split over three levels, with a total of 18 modules. These include:

  • Base modules. Teaches fundamental tech skills, including computer and online essentials, as well as word processing and spreadsheets.
  • Intermediate modules. This level has nine modules to choose from, which teach everything from databases and IT security to image/web editing and digital marketing.
  • Advanced modules. Allows students to build on basic skills, with modules based around advanced word processing, spreadsheets, database, and presentation.

Higher levels

Right now, this level of skill will need to be hired In and assist with building a long-term digital strategy on-farm or ranch. But, getting to higher levels of digital literacy, irrespective of assistance from third-party or consultants still means that you and your team need to learn the necessary systems, basic terms and get to a basic level with software languages while understanding data flow on your farm or ranch. This is what is going to allow further gains in intelligence and management that enhance your business and the whole industry at large. It’s exciting to think if we can get to this level on-farm what innovation and insight will be created and implemented by farmers and ranchers.

Getting direction to the necessary online training courses that allow farm team members to effectively handle farm or ranch data, could allow you and your business the ability to bring integrated data together to make outputs or visuals in your business intelligence “dashboard”, create or generate a report, change system sensitivity, set alerts that are specific to you and your farm needs, access new alerts and insights, with data in the format you need and delivered to whom in the team who needs it. This includes the necessary courses to read and handle data and apply statistical tools unique to the farm, this may include testing data systems quality and quantifying data, ensuring that data is flowing to correct locations, while being able to conduct and pass a data audit with your data systems or just download and apply an algorithmic insight, with the understanding of why it’s being applied. The ability to back up, basic defensive cybersecurity skills, or just a greater ability to notice potential threats or vulnerabilities will also be needed as part of future training for our industry and business needs.

The flexibility and ease of applying newly developed tools to the specific farm or ranches data ecosystem is an important feature that allows for a greater supply of enhanced tools and services [AI, ML, and the necessary compute power to run these AI and ML programs that benefit the farm or ranch] supplied by third parties, supply chain and service industry, which will become a new economy in agriculture. But to counterbalance this and ensure the value of the data is not lost by the data owner, the necessary digital skills allowing you to manage your data ecosystem to control data ownership is imperative and more a reason we need to deploy civil data scientists and engineers at the farm and ranch level.

The digital tools are always evolving and updating, it takes continuous learning programs, so dipping in and out of these digital education areas is normal and ok. One of the starting points with the data and systems will be to define the data and data systems you have already and then begin to use the necessary tools to help capitalize on the value of these systems.

There are many online sources where you can begin online training courses that will help begin our ‘digital agricultural revolution’ on-farm or -ranch. These courses offer many classes, tutorials, online workshops, videos, and practical demonstrations, that give certifications upon completion and track your progress or employee progress and many of them are free or relatively low cost. Specific items to explore:

  • Statistics programs – R language
  • Coding languages: Python, C++, JavaScript, PHP, or really any other.
  • Cloud computing service training: Microsoft learn, Google learning, AWS courses, IBM Training, Udemy. Within each of these course providers there are a host of different courses for an enormous number of tools, these are both from true beginner to professional.  Examples of courses you should start with are Power BI, Tableau, Google Data Studio.
  • With the current generation of AgriTech platforms, sensors, and programs that you have on farm or ranch, you can always reach out and see what training is being offered by those suppliers, that better helps you in understanding who is and how to handle your data.
  • Research institutions offer an enormous number of resources and some of the key universities that are working on greater livestock data systems that are worth following are the University of Wisconsin Madison – Dairy Brain, MTU Ireland – Joseph Walsh’s Lab, Wageningen University – Circular food systems, IoT Digital Innovation Hub – Salamanca, Spain. 

Using and learning from these existing service providers, programs, and tools that are already out there and used by so many other sectors, is the same learning and infrastructure we need on farm and ranch without reinventing the wheel, livestock agriculture can adopt these training systems and programs for their needs, even if it’s the basic level.

Longer-term, as we learn, adopt, and deploy these systems to the specific challenges and needs of livestock agriculture, it will also mean we evolve these systems if not create new ones for our specific needs and challenges, which are also exciting areas of innovation within livestock agricultural technology.

How does improving digital literacy levels benefit my farm or ranch?

There is a need to develop a model of digital skills training aimed at farmers and ranchers so they can become the civil data engineers and scientists that are much needed in the field today. Learning to assess and implement the best practices and technologies for their business needs, while equipping farm and ranch workers for middle-skill jobs, will allow them to earn more, advance their roles/responsibilities, and could decrease turnover and instability for locally owned businesses and small, rural communities, which is of tremendous value.

Your data has an interesting life from its inception/creation to its long-term storage, we need to know the life of your data, and the more you know about its life the better control over it you’ll have, which is a critical part of maintaining a value of your data. This also Improves data quality and data flow [integration] from across the facility.

Data is a new resource on our farms and ranches, we’ve got some of the tools we need on-farm already, we just need to sharpen up the necessary digital literacy skills, integrate these resources [data] from across your entire facility, pasture to the parlor. This is what will fuel the next agricultural production revolution and make your business the farm of the future. After that, it’s truly unstoppable what could be done if farms and ranches improve digital literacy levels, they have the power to disrupt everything around us, including entire food systems and natural ecosystems for the better and where new values can be derived from.

Digital literacy is a long-term strategy to solving some of our most challenging issues in livestock food production, it has a steep learning curve, but once we get over this hump the opportunities and enhanced capabilities will change how we farm, making you and your farm team unstoppable “agri-preneuers” of the future.

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