How does today’s farmer manage the deluge of data generated by ever more high-tech equipment, cope with disruptions from tariffs to tech to coronavirus, respond to pressures to protect water quality and prosper in the face of changing consumer desires?

Attendees at Hills Bank’s annual Farm Outlook Conference on Friday, March 6, left the Riverside Casino and Golf Resort with practical tips and encouragement after hearing from experts in ag tech, markets, nutrient reduction and the disruptive forces reshaping farming.

“There are 7.7 billion people on the planet who do not have coronavirus. They’ll eventually get hungry,” DTN grain market analyst Todd Hultman assured attendees. Despite the “emotional state” of the markets, “there is still demand for the crops you grow.”

That said, Hultman is not looking for a bullish market situation this year.

World economic growth was expected to remain low in 2020 even before coronavirus outbreak, while Brazil and Argentina are on track for big harvests of corn and soybeans.

He also notes the phase one China deal has big catch.

“If it’s not in China’s commercial self-interest, they’re not going to buy,” he said.

Howard Hagen and David Repp, of Des Moines’ Dickinson Law, offered a “good cop-bad cop routine” highlighting the disruptive forces reshaping agriculture.

Farming is transitioning from high-labor to high-capital business, noted Repp, whose family has been farming in Iowa for 100 years.

Although production excels, profitability does not. The percent of return on overall assets has dropped from the 8%-10% range in 2008-12 to under 4%.

He predicted the industry will be gutted by disruptions including mass market electric vehicles, plant-based and cell-based meats, the shift of the milk market to non-dairy products and dropping birthrates in developed economies.

Hagen followed with a rebuttal to the gloomy scenario.

“Today’s disruption is different in scale and pace,” but the ag industry has always been disrupted, he noted.

Technology and consumerism are driving change, he said. For farmers to win, “play their game,” urged Hagen.

One way is to participate with companies like Indigo Agriculture, which plans to pay Iowa farmers to sequester carbon on their land.

As evidence the industry is taking climate change seriously, he pointed to the USDA’s new plan to cut farming’s climate footprint in half by 2050.

Farmers might benefit from demand for biodegradable plastic made from corn, yellow peas used in plant-based hamburger and plant-based drinking straws, he said.

Iowa State University digital agriculture specialist Dr. Matt Darr admitted the promised benefits from digital data in ag were overhyped and are only now beginning to be realized broadly.

He advised using data to create yield and profit maps, embrace trusted advisers and independent data sources and adopting aerial imaging.

Kay Stefanik, assistant director of ISU’s Iowa Nutrient Research Center, noted scant progress toward reaching the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy goal of cutting the nitrogen and phosphorous loads leaving the state by 45%.

The center’s 2017-18 report showed 1.8 million acres in CRP, terraces and water and sediment control basins treating 290,000 acres, 86 nitrogen removal wetlands treating 104,000 acres and 760,000 cover crop acres.

These are “only a drop in the bucket of what we need to reach our goal,” she said.