While the general public adjusts to the idea of self-driving cars, in the agricultural world it’s old hat.
Navigating corn fields is a different experience from driving on streets and freeways, but DigiFarm is there to help make sure it’s a safe journey.
Most tractors, combines, sprayers and other big pieces of farming equipment come out of the factory with modems installed. DigiFarm uses that now-standard tool to improve fieldwork for farmers.
The story behind DigiFarm
DigiFarm founder David Dusanek started the company out of his own need. His family has a farm in Monticello in eastern Iowa, and Dusanek was looking for ways to incorporate GPS into the farm equipment.
None of the commercially available products fit his needs, so Dusanek turned to Google. Through trial and error, he built a GPS base station and installed netbook computers into four tractors. Soon, he was able to program the tractors to do work around the farm.
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When neighboring farmers expressed interest, Dusanek built similar setups for them, operating out of his GPS base station. As word spread, farms outside of the base station’s coverage area started requesting to use DigiFarm’s equipment, and Dusanek started building more GPS base stations to expand the company’s coverage.
“It all works by essentially moving data from point A to point B,” Dusanek said. “You can think of it like an iPhone or XM Radio, when they power on they’re preconfigured to dial into a server and move data back and forth. Our piece of hardware’s one mission in life is to log on to a server and say, ‘I would like directions,’ which immediately start streaming back.”
Learning to scale
When DigiFarm was using netbooks in the early days, the computer’s battery would die, cutting off the conversation with the GPS base station.
Since then, scaling has been the major hurdle. Digifarm’s biggest need is to grow its coverage area, which involves installing GPS base stations and setting up servers around the country. Dusanek has realized he can’t do everything himself, and has expanded the DigiFarm team to around a dozen people so that installation and research and development don’t all fall on his shoulders.
Expanding DigiFarm’s reach
At this point, DigiFarm has coverage in 35 states, as well as three provinces in Canada. According to Dusanek, it’s not a difficult process, just time consuming. If demand for DigiFarm starts expanding beyond North America, Dusanek is ready to start testing his options.
DigiFarm recently launched an app for both iOS and Android, and it was the first company of its kind to come to market fully supporting all of Apple’s hardware.
DigiFarm also started building its own modems for farm equipment to ease the conversations with the GPS base stations.
“Early on we said we would not get into hardware, but I look at it as a necessary evil,” Dusanek said. “I saw shortfalls in all the modems available. If I could have found one I liked best, DigiFarm would have pushed that very hard. But if you control the data and point A and point B, you can make tweaks and changes at both sides and ultimately end up with a more efficient network.”
Looking ahead
Dusanek said he plans to continue growing DigiFarm, though upcoming projects include some proprietary tech that he didn’t want to go into detail on. But he thinks it’s important that the company use its size and versatility to continue to lead in GPS technology.
“If you’re not at the leading edge, you’re playing catchup. It’s not hard to stay ahead of some of the big companies, tech wise,” Dusanek said. “They take so long to bring things to market, so if we always have new things we’re working on, we can stay a step ahead.”
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Joe Lawler is a freelance reporter based in Des Moines.
