Agriculture is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Are you or someone you know a farmer by trade, and always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to save your time and money when working out in the field? Maybe you have always dreamed of being a farmer, and you are trying to find some ways to help you get started on a small hobby farm or even a large-scale industrial farm that you have recently started?

Perhaps you suffered a huge loss last year as a farmer, and you are looking for some ways to help your entire process become more efficient, and ensure your success in the coming growing seasons? If any of this sounds like your situation, then keep on reading to get some great information on the topic. This article will discuss a few ways that leading agricultural industry experts believe will allow you to work smarter, not harder.

Farming has always benefitted from the introduction of new technology, so make sure you are giving your crops every possible opportunity to thrive.

Soil

Having good soil is essential if you want to grow crops that produce a large yield and taste great. Bad soil will almost always result in bad products. Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do to ensure your soil maintains its quality year after year.

Many farmers like to rotate their crops to prevent soil leaching, which occurs when you grow the same crop in the same soil year after year. Another way to enhance the quality of your soil is by using things like compost and fertiliser to boost the number of nutrients present in the dirt.

This will give your crop a constant supply of all the essential building blocks and ensure that you get the maximum yield and quality out of your work.

Innovate

If humans were not capable of innovation in every aspect of our life, then we would likely have never evolved at all into the amazing creatures we are today. You could even make an argument that innovation is the key to success for all life in the universe.

What we can take from this information is that innovating in the agricultural business is a good thing. If you want to be on the cutting edge of any industry, then you will need to be constantly innovating, and keeping an eye on new developments in the industry. Innovations do not happen overnight, and can often be the product of a mistake.

Be sure to always experiment with new ideas and try to intentionally improve your process to be more efficient and organised. This will allow you to always get the most bang for your buck where investing your time is concerned.

Calculations

When you are trying to run a large-scale agricultural operation, making sure that all of your calculations are correct is of the utmost importance. Making even a small mistake can have huge implications for the viability of your farming operation. There are a variety of different tools that contemporary farmers have been using to help them get more accurate numbers.

Some farmers use a number of bushels per acre calculator or other similar software in order to give them accurate predictions of the types of yields that they can expect with the upcoming harvest. If you have never used these resources to help you figure out your farming yields, then you probably spend a lot of time doing it manually or have no prediction at all. Both of these can be problematic, so make sure you make the right decision and use the best tool for the job.

Seeds

One of the key components of being successful in the agricultural industry is to make sure that you have quality seeds that you know will produce a great product and yield. Many commercial farms now purchase their seeds from large companies like Monsanto, which have monopolised the seed industry.

There are many problematic aspects to the monopolisation of seeds by large companies, and it has led to a monoculture in many ecosystems around the world. If you are a small-scale farmer, or even a larger scale one, you should absolutely look into purchasing your seeds from an independent supplier, rather than going to big companies that are trying to monopolise the industry.

Irrigation

Another extremely important aspect of having a successful yield as a farmer is to make sure that all of your irrigation systems are working properly.

If you live in an area that can experience droughts and extremely dry conditions, then irrigation will be absolutely essential if you want to have any crops at all. Lots of irrigation systems run on timers, so you can simply set everything up and just let it do its thing.

Tractors

Massive innovation in the farming industry was the development of mechanical tractors that allow farmers to quickly harvest and plant massive amounts of crops or seeds. Before tractors were invented, farmers would use animals like oxen, horses, and donkeys in order to pull their ploughs to help prep the soil for planting. These tasks can now be done in a single afternoon with only a single person operating a tractor. Tractors can also be one of the most expensive investments for a farmer, and can easily exceed 1 million dollars after all the required hook-ups and combines have been purchased.

After exploring some of the different ideas and strategies presented previously, the hope is that you have come away with a better understanding of some different ways that leading agricultural industry experts to recommend changing up your farming practices in order to work smarter, not harder. Even though working hard can make you feel like you are doing the best thing in order to be successful, that is not always the case. Sometimes using the best technology and resources available to you can make a drastic difference in the overall productivity or profitability of the agricultural industry.

The time has come to move your farming practices into the 21st century along with the rest of the world. You will not regret improving your farming process and will be able to reap the rewards for years to come.