The Farm Progress Panel allows participants to share their thoughts on questions sent by mobile text weekly. This week, we took a quick pulse of farmer attitudes regarding ag tech adoption.
While the question sounds mundane, we're hearing from ag technology companies that farmers are accelerating their use of these new tools in their operations and we sought insight from the panel. And what we found is that there's a solid group of quick adopters and a larger number right behind that are looking at these new tools for their farms.
Nearly 1 in 8 respondents shared they're fast at adopting new technology noting that once it's out they want to try it. That's a little larger on the "early adopter" scale you usually hear about, which is often less than 1 in 10.
Perhaps the surprise is the next answer, that the user is moderately fast at adoption. Here nearly half the respondents say they get on board with new tech when they hear reviews or the thoughts on a new tool from a friend (perhaps an early adopter).
Yet caution still has hold of one-third of respondents who told us they wait for new tools to be on the market for a few years. This group, while smaller than the moderately fast respondents, is a significant part of the market. And this may include folks who have been burned by adopting early only to find the ag tech they invested in failed them.
And finally, there's a small group of holdouts, people who shared on our mobile panel that they don't want new tech and don't need it.
Get on the panel
The Panel provides an interesting look at the current state of interest in new farm technologies. If you're in the very fast group or the moderately fast group, you might want to check out the upcoming Farm Progress Virtual Experience where you can see a range of new tools for the farm. Learn more at FarmProgressShow.com.
The Farm Progress Panel is a smart phone poll produced several times a year. Farmers with a smart phone can be part of the panel simply by texting PANEL to 20505. If you subscribe, you'll get a confirmation text to reply to, so we can make sure you are opting in to take part.
To get access to top news every day from the Farm Progress family of websites, you can text FARM to 20505 and start receiving daily texts the next day. It's another way to keep up on what's happening in agriculture.
