Andrew Nelson: Balancing the clock speeds of code and crops

Andrew Nelson is a tinkerer. He is always running some or the other experiment on his farm to learn more. He is a fifth-generation wheat farmer in Washington state. He can also write software code. Andrew’s philosophy is to make every plant as productive as possible, reduce the footprint of arable land, and do it with the help of technology. Andrew has worked with hundreds of startups in AgTech and outside. Andrew wants simple to use yet smart technology on the farm, which can be quickly fixed, when something breaks down.

I hope you enjoyed this conversation with a wheat farmer and technologist, as much as I did having it.

Productivity through Technology

Rhishi: In a Nature article you said, “I want to make sure that every acre and every plant is as productive as possible. The fewer acres that are needed to grow food, the more can be saved for conservation. Technology helps me make sure that everything I do on my farm works toward that goal.”

How does this philosophy show up in your daily life?

Andrew Nelson: For me, being able to produce more from our land is incredibly helpful. It allows us to generate more revenue, and hopefully more profit for our farm. But it also lets us steward the land more intentionally. That could mean enrolling in conservation programs or setting aside more areas for things like strips to improve soil and water conservation. That’s something I genuinely want to do.

This approach guides how I manage the farm, and it mirrors the principle of stewardship, both of the land and of our financials. If I don’t care for one or the other the farm won’t survive. I think a lot of farmers, even if they don’t say it out loud, think about that. They want their farm to make it through a tough year, but they also want to leave something behind for future generations, if that’s what the next generation chooses to do.

That’s why I use technology to manage smaller and smaller parts of each field. It’s an ambitious goal to manage down to the level of each plant. When I’m planting 1.2 million wheat plants per acre, going plant by plant sounds kind of crazy. But it’s a bold, exciting challenge. And it gets me thinking: What if I actually could do that?

The better we get at managing on this micro scale, the more we can improve soil health and grow more nutritious food from the same acres. And hopefully, we’ll make our soils more resilient,able to sustain themselves even in harsher climates than they were originally used to.

We’re fortunate in our area. We’ve got deep topsoil, this clay loam that holds onto moisture incredibly well. That’s what allows us to dryland-farm with very little rainfall each year. But I think that’s also made us a little complacent. We’ve relied on that topsoil and haven’t always had to think much about it. But that’s changing. And as conditions shift, we have to think about it more and more.

Ideally, I’d love to see more farmers in our area, because that supports a stronger, more vibrant community.

Ever since I moved back from the Seattle area, that’s what I’ve been trying to move our operation toward.

Rhishi: For most corn and soy farmers the goal is to scale up to reduce per-acre costs and improve profitability. It sounds like that’s not your goal.

Andrew Nelson: Yeah, that’s true in my area too. We’ve grown quite a bit. When I was growing up, we farmed about half the acres we do now. But I don’t want that pattern to define the future.

When I look at the innovations on the horizon, smaller robots, swarming technologies, I see real potential to avoid the need for massive purchases. For example, instead of buying a sprayer built to cover 8,000 acres, I could deploy a spray robot designed for 1,000 acres or less. That would completely change how we spread costs across acres.

Right now, the reason we buy these big self-propelled sprayers is because of scale. If you’re farming 4,000 acres, you often end up with a sprayer that’s technically oversized, because there’s no practical way to buy “half a sprayer.” Some farmers try to share one, but that’s tricky. You and your neighbor might both need to spray on the same day. Or maybe your neighbor’s an early riser and you’re not, or vice versa. It creates a lot of friction.

That’s why I’m hopeful we’ll move toward a future where smaller, smarter, and more modular implements make more sense. Every time I see a new combine get even bigger, I groan a little. I may eventually have to switch to it, but it frustrates me. Bigger doesn’t always mean better.

And it’s the same story with sprayers. Sometimes I see a new model with 25 or 50 cameras onboard,each one costing thousands of dollars, and I think, “Why not build a simpler sprayer and just feed it smarter information from the outside?”

Future of Agriculture Equipment

Rhishi: Do you think the future of agricultural equipment is heading toward becoming smaller, smarter, and more autonomous?