4 ms·

> Even farmers, it might not be necessary, but it can make a huge difference. As a software developer by day, farmer by night, I'm not sure there is much overl

> Even farmers, it might not be necessary, but it can make a huge difference. As a software developer by day, farmer by night, I'm not sure there is much overlap. Some of the problem solving skills I learned on the farm have made me a better programmer, I expect, but I don't see much advantage in building software for my farm. Anything you can dream of is available commercially at a fraction of the cost it would take to build it yourself. As the saying goes, technology is developed in the military, adopted by agriculture, and then exposed to the rest of the world. That said, the story is quite different for my new side venture in a consumer market, however. I could easily turn development into a full time job in that industry. There is a lot lacking in what already exists.

thfuran 7y ago
I'm not sure that's a saying outside of agriculture.
- randomdata 7y ago
  It was on HN that I first heard it. I'm not sure it is a saying within agriculture. We take for granted the advanced technology that we get to play with.
  - klipt 7y ago
    Advanced compared to what? Probably not microchip factories...
  - krustyburger 7y ago
    Do you have a link? It seems like an interesting idea.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
imron 7y ago
> As a software developer by day, farmer by night, I'm not sure there is much overlap Depends what you need it for https://tractorhacking.github.io/ https://tractorhacking.github.io/
- dejv 7y ago
  Once you get into level of assets that require tractor like this your main job is financial planning.
lern_too_spel 7y ago
> I don't see much advantage in building software for my farm. Controlled environment agriculture is heavily data driven and is a fast growing field. Same with genetically modified crops.
- dejv 7y ago
  Controlled environment agriculture = greenhouse. There are two scales of this operation: small scale low-tech option which require just thermostat and fans and then you have big scale high tech versions that costs many millions of dollars and come with all the controllers built-in. For low tech option there is just not enough margin and leverage to make it worth spending your time on it. For high tech options you are having millions in debt and another million or two in running cost (labor, seed, electricity) and with margins in single digits you are probably don't want to risk playing with your recipes. Safer bet is to outsource your tech needs to the companies that have teams of people working on just one single problem.
- randomdata 7y ago
  All agriculture is heavily data driven. It is not that you couldn't put your skills to use, in theory, but it is not economically viable to do so as there are businesses who have full-time employees doing it better and cheaper. In order to stay competitive with other farmers you have to turn to the third-party providers, not hack it yourself. To make such a thing economically viable you'd have to find a problem space that is either unexplored or unique to your business. Both are unlikely to begin with – everything you can think of has already been done – but in the odd chance you do have something in the former case, you really need to dedicate all your time to it in order to make it a commercial success. That pretty much means giving up farming. The latter case doesn't really come up either as farming is a commodity business. There is no benefit in finding differentiation in almost all cases. If you really have a good idea unique to your business, your neighbour is still going to want to copy you, which brings us back to the first case.
  - mycall 7y ago
    Maybe genetic algorithms could help you optimize correlated questions you might need answering.
steamer25 7y ago
> I could easily turn development into a full time job in that industry. There is a lot lacking in what already exists. Care to describe what's missing in a little more detail?
- randomdata 7y ago
  The thing is that all farms (producing a given product) are pretty much the same. When something is a commodity, there is no benefit in differentiating your business through process. A tomato is a tomato is a tomato. Nobody cares about what it took to get it to market. This means that everyone converges in the same direction. This means that the tools that are out there for other farms are pretty much guaranteed to fit right into your operation with ease. It would actually be counterproductive, economically speaking, to try and recreate this existing tools. It will cost you more in the end. In this consumer space, there is more effort to try and be different. In this case, the customer notices processes and better processes make for a better customer experience. That is how you beat the competition. Often the tools that are out there don't fit nice and tidy into the way we wish to do business. They are either tailored for other businesses or try to be a jack of all trades, master of none. There is all kinds of room to build software that is specific to our operation, and beneficially so. There is a room to get a leg up on the competition if you do it well. As a bit of an aside, when you're paying $500,000 for a tractor what you get, in terms of technology, is also quite different to a $100/month SaaS product. That is the other big thing I have noticed is simply quality of software. Nobody could ever afford to pay $500,000 for a system in this consumer industry, so the options that are out there are quite low quality. Understandably – I know all too well from my day job the corners we often have to cut and the concessions we have to make to keep things within budget – but in an ideal world the software would be better.
mikegreenberg 7y ago
Consider your ability to automate tasks on your farm (watering, checking soil health, product QA). All of those tasks being automated potentially increase your output.

thfuran 7y ago

I'm not sure that's a saying outside of agriculture.

randomdata 7y ago
It was on HN that I first heard it. I'm not sure it is a saying within agriculture. We take for granted the advanced technology that we get to play with.
- klipt 7y ago
  Advanced compared to what? Probably not microchip factories...
- krustyburger 7y ago
  Do you have a link? It seems like an interesting idea.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

imron 7y ago

> As a software developer by day, farmer by night, I'm not sure there is much overlap Depends what you need it for https://tractorhacking.github.io/ https://tractorhacking.github.io/

dejv 7y ago
Once you get into level of assets that require tractor like this your main job is financial planning.

lern_too_spel 7y ago

> I don't see much advantage in building software for my farm. Controlled environment agriculture is heavily data driven and is a fast growing field. Same with genetically modified crops.

dejv 7y ago
Controlled environment agriculture = greenhouse. There are two scales of this operation: small scale low-tech option which require just thermostat and fans and then you have big scale high tech versions that costs many millions of dollars and come with all the controllers built-in. For low tech option there is just not enough margin and leverage to make it worth spending your time on it. For high tech options you are having millions in debt and another million or two in running cost (labor, seed, electricity) and with margins in single digits you are probably don't want to risk playing with your recipes. Safer bet is to outsource your tech needs to the companies that have teams of people working on just one single problem.
randomdata 7y ago
All agriculture is heavily data driven. It is not that you couldn't put your skills to use, in theory, but it is not economically viable to do so as there are businesses who have full-time employees doing it better and cheaper. In order to stay competitive with other farmers you have to turn to the third-party providers, not hack it yourself. To make such a thing economically viable you'd have to find a problem space that is either unexplored or unique to your business. Both are unlikely to begin with – everything you can think of has already been done – but in the odd chance you do have something in the former case, you really need to dedicate all your time to it in order to make it a commercial success. That pretty much means giving up farming. The latter case doesn't really come up either as farming is a commodity business. There is no benefit in finding differentiation in almost all cases. If you really have a good idea unique to your business, your neighbour is still going to want to copy you, which brings us back to the first case.
- mycall 7y ago
  Maybe genetic algorithms could help you optimize correlated questions you might need answering.

steamer25 7y ago

> I could easily turn development into a full time job in that industry. There is a lot lacking in what already exists. Care to describe what's missing in a little more detail?

randomdata 7y ago
The thing is that all farms (producing a given product) are pretty much the same. When something is a commodity, there is no benefit in differentiating your business through process. A tomato is a tomato is a tomato. Nobody cares about what it took to get it to market. This means that everyone converges in the same direction. This means that the tools that are out there for other farms are pretty much guaranteed to fit right into your operation with ease. It would actually be counterproductive, economically speaking, to try and recreate this existing tools. It will cost you more in the end. In this consumer space, there is more effort to try and be different. In this case, the customer notices processes and better processes make for a better customer experience. That is how you beat the competition. Often the tools that are out there don't fit nice and tidy into the way we wish to do business. They are either tailored for other businesses or try to be a jack of all trades, master of none. There is all kinds of room to build software that is specific to our operation, and beneficially so. There is a room to get a leg up on the competition if you do it well. As a bit of an aside, when you're paying $500,000 for a tractor what you get, in terms of technology, is also quite different to a $100/month SaaS product. That is the other big thing I have noticed is simply quality of software. Nobody could ever afford to pay $500,000 for a system in this consumer industry, so the options that are out there are quite low quality. Understandably – I know all too well from my day job the corners we often have to cut and the concessions we have to make to keep things within budget – but in an ideal world the software would be better.

mikegreenberg 7y ago

Consider your ability to automate tasks on your farm (watering, checking soil health, product QA). All of those tasks being automated potentially increase your output.