[hluska]

Agriculture used to be the dominant industry in my part of Canada, and I have relatives/many friends who either farmed or currently farm. Consequently, I was once extremely interested in agtech.

I ran into a couple of problems. One big problem is that farming is not a particularly good business to get into right now. Equipment costs are very high, inputs are constant, and the global market is only kind to those producers who produce at massive scale. The days of taking over your Dad's quarter section and feeding your family ended before I was born. Now, if you want to take over the family farm, you more likely than not have a full-time job in the nearest community...

Because of the economic crunch, it has created a demographic issue. Many of the farmers I spoke to are in their 70s and 80s. They are mainly retired, but keep working the land to keep it away from corporate farms. Farming is more of a hobby at this point, and they choose to do it the way they always did.

The young farmers who would be early adopters hesitate because they more often than not rely upon their parents and grandparents during seeding and harvest. And, they can never rely upon a profit big enough to even pay the cost of automation.

Edit - It occurs to me that the phrase 'quarter section' has little meaning to anyone outside of agrarian communities. A section is usually one square mile. In Canada, in the late 1800s/early 1900s, the government granted one quarter section to any family that showed they could work the land. The Dominion Land Grant fuelled immigration. Many families still own their original quarter section and are fiercely protective of it.