News

Great Lakes Tek Flex demonstrates practicality of new ag tech

Great Lakes partners from industry and Extension are bringing new agricultural technology to specialty crop growers.

Michigan State University Extension specialist Mike Reinke tells Brownfield farmers in the region haven’t had a place to interact with cutting-edge, commercially available technology as more robotics and autonomous equipment enters the marketplace.

“Some of these tools were designed with the idea of labor savings in mind,” he says. “Some of them were designed with improved precision, so improved sustainability in other forms, reduced pesticide use.”

He says partners from Ohio, Canada, and other Great Lakes states are demonstrating available tools and asking what the broader needs are for farms of all sizes to support the future of food production.

“What’s the state of technology?” he says the event highlights. “Framing the challenges that technology is looking to address, and then discussing the challenges of adoption and getting people in the room to discuss how we can bridge those gaps.”

Reinke says Extension educators also need to learn alongside growers how they can be a better resource as the equipment evolves.

Brownfield interviewed Reinke during the Great Lakes Tek Flex event hosted at the MSU Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center in Benton Harbor.