THE season this year has been disappointing, but this is the business we are in and this is not the first time things have 'gone off the boil', so many of our members will be looking to next year.
Maybe though it's time to have a look a bit further into the future and see if we are on track to take advantage of what is ahead.
Let's think about today and ask the question - how much of what we do is controlled by software, when we check our smart phones for messages, when we drive our cars or machinery, when we move money form one account or bank to another?
Let's bring ourselves back to agriculture and ask the same question and we'll find that a lot of machinery we use daily is controlled by software - engines have been using it for years, as have transmissions and all in an endeavour to be more efficient.
Guidance of course has been with us for a quarter of a century and the many aspects of equipment application are all controlled one way or another with software, so this is clearly with us and in many cases taken for granted.
So, in many respects our lives are now in the future and will be more and more controlled by software and firmware.
So are we ready for this evolution, do we understand the need and what we will be working with?
Machinery will be similar in concept to what we have always used but the difference will be is that its function will be controlled, not by the operator, but by the software designed into it.
We may press the button, but the function will be determined by a computer.
This is exciting because it will enable us to have better control of things and to be more precise - computers are much faster in their application than humans, provided of course that they have been well programmed.
So, on a day-to-day basis we will do things differently and from our members' perspectives, the approach to things will also take a different slant in the way people think and act.
For example, the technician of the future will be well versed in computer technology rather than having a first instinct of reaching for the spanners, although that will still be a vital aspect of his or her job, but there will be more emphasis on diagnostics.
Likewise, will all other people in the dealership or our local manufacturers using computers, be more and more part of the everyday thinking?
Several of our members have already employed agronomists to join the science up with the application and use the many layers of so-called mega data which has been collected over the past decade and beyond.
The question is are we ready?
The farm machinery industry is but are others who play a vital role up to the job?
Do we have the available 'connectivity' to allow communications and data transfer to allow us to use the technology today?
Are our technician apprentice qualifications up to speed with technology?
Are graduates at university taught about technology when they study agriculture and are our regulators up to speed whith what technology is being used and are they conscious of what is being developed for the future?
The answer to these questions is no, so if we are to embrace what is just around the corner we need to be a lot more focused than we are today if we are to remain competitive in the agricultural world.
What we have discussed is how software and firmware is affecting machinery as we have it today.
Just around the corner, however, is a new way of operating which is going to revolutionise agriculture - autonomous machinery.
Agricultural equipment manufacturers have been developing autonomous machines for a long time and within a very few years they will be here and well ahead of the automotive industry where all the chatter is now.
We have been guiding machinery for many years and the technology is there to make them autonomous, even today there are videos of tractors unloading grain from harvesters and with not an operator in sight, so the industry is ready to go but are the authorities?
What thought has been given when this autonomous machinery needs to be moved on the road from paddock to paddock, will these machines be able to be licensed, and what sort of restrictions will be applied before the regulators wake up to the fact that these machines are on the market.
I could go on, but space prohibits me other than to ask the question again - are we ready?
