AI - The Pros and the Pitfalls with Paul Schrimpf, Part #1 (#50)

[Music] Hey everybody, welcome to Division Tech perspectives. This is Dave Swain with Division Technology Management and Guess who's also here? Doug Johnson. How you doing Doug? Hey I'm good Dave, excited to be back. Happy 2026. Yeah, it's a bright new sunny year and we're ready to take it head on aren't we? Yep. Fantastic. Well I want to bring in a friend of mine. I'm not sure he wants to call me a friend but I'll call him a friend but a guy that I've known how long we know each other Paul. Paul Schremp. I'll let him do his own introduction but we've known each other at least a day or two so I'll let him introduce himself and then we'll get into our topic. Hey thanks Dave. So again, Paul Schremp. I've been messing around with egg technology since 1998 is when I first came on board to the industry. City Kid I was in Ag Media for all that time. Work for a crop would in farm chemicals magazine and crop life which became crop life magazine and I also was put in charge of a brand called precision egg. We have a variety of different conferences and events and other kinds of special publications that we did over the years but I was knee deep and it was kind of a lifeline for me I think in those early that early five years it thinks about I think say five years to at least get a mile wide and an inch deep on any market but in 1998 I came to a show called precision or the International Conference on Precision Egg and met as many people as I could and I was pretty convinced that I was in the wrong industry and needed to get out because it was pretty complex and pretty insane and folks like Dave I don't if I met you at that show but probably pretty soon thereafter you know an egg tech or egg him equipment was was huge and soil tech in this early days of a variable rate and all the crazy things were going on there. I certainly needed a lot of help understanding what was going on and what it was impacting so you know Dave was one of those key people I met early on when he was at egg and he was at egg tem and he came and we we commiserated and shared a lot of stories and over the years it's been a been someone I've gone to for advice and information and honesty which Dave is no shortage of he is no problem telling me how stupid I am or how good and bad an idea is that I'm working on so I appreciate well it goes both ways so don't don't think that that that you know doing stupid things is only a one directional thing because you know you do a pretty good job for that for me as well so but what I mean you know you you you talked about the early days so you know kind of kind of bring us up to date from the mid 90s and even the early 2000s what have you been up to what what have you done and and what are you doing now well you say a lot of it was a lot of it was trying to you know I think early goal was was to say you know they didn't want to hear this around the company but I said yeah I'd say you know our job is to make precision egg egg you know it's just like you don't want precision agriculture to be special you want it you want to recognize that it's important so over time but you want it to meld into what agriculture would eventually become so our our thing was how do we educate people to try things how do we educate people to make them make them understand where things should be head what source of things they should be trying with technologies are most promising where the industry is headed and not be breathlessly you know in saying like some of the you know like we had the venture capital boom in 15 16 17 you know trying to keep those people obey and say look you know farmers are farmers retail the retail we've got to grow a crop and we're not going to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a lot of technology that only gives us this much or gives us question of literature whatever it is we we try to be the voice of sanity through all that process as we spend a lot of time doing for the magazines with conferences we wanted farmers talking to farmers we wanted farmers and retailers you know talking together we wanted to bring the industry in find out where things were going so I spent you know I spent an appreciable amount of time just trying to bring sanity to that mark along with my my team at my stream media so when we got to 2021 I think the pandemic created a lot of opportunities for people to to try new things and a gateway we're working for right now the standards organization that kind of brings companies together to collectively create data standards and messages that they're improve interoperability improve connectivity it's it's a long kind of a long game as far as getting that to happen but that's what these folks do they understand how difficult that is it can't just be you know one company doing it it can't be a click of the fingers and everything magically occurs you have to work at it together and I'll commit to using it at the same time but they were looking for someone to on the mark on side to to put that messaging out there to talk about the things that they're doing that are really positive so it was an opportunity to I guess you know instead of talking about all these things instead of just kind of being a medium-out piece I could actually get in in the industry talk to the companies find out how we can communicate this better and and and help more directly improve the industry as opposed to just talking about it so that's what I'm doing doing that since the beginning of 22 January 22 I took that over you know it was kind of interesting see it come out of the post pandemic and you know regenerate the energy not that it was energy was dead but certainly to get people in the room together and talking and start that whole in-person process over again it's been it's been great so yeah we're we're excited about that and that's I think that's key to one working on right now along with just keeping up with the industry. I've always got interest in where things are headed where technologies are headed what what sorts of things are happening outside that will win food and start a membership so okay so let's let's go back in time because you know what I'm kind of looking at this this topic you know and I were talking the other day and and kind of generated this this episode and that was AI you know and I kind of in our prep it was pros and pitfalls that's kind of what I want to look at into this but let's let's go back in time and when you started and and I'll use my example you brought them up ag Kim and soil tech when all of this started I started in 97 with soil tech so the the precision ag full time and everything was definitely siloed if you worked with a company you had to work only with that company because there was no there was no compatibility amongst anybody and you you you probably dealt with that even more than I did just from the perspective of you were reporting on everybody so kind of give us an idea of what that looked like and and then we'll kind of pull that forward as as we get into this conversation sure you know so the the first real I think you could you could see it in sense of entry shows in those early days those first few years I did but one of the things that we wanted to do with precision ag and again you know understanding that if companies can work together perhaps we can advance technologies perhaps we can do better for farmers we had this idea to do an organization what we call the precision ag Institute you know it's a big idea let's bring everybody together it's kind of be the UN of precision and that's the first time I've ever used that but I've kind of kind of kind of what it felt like was more like the League of Nations at that time but the what we wanted to do is bring people together to find out what sorts of things we can we can do to further the conversation to to get to get growers interested to get retailers to understand these things so so we had a meeting I think it was in 2004 a effect it was at the info a conference or maybe if not info I wouldn't mean for I was 2004 we had a special meeting of of just asking leaders of ag companies to come together precision ag companies to come together we had probably seven or eight in the room and you know the hate was palpable I mean I and it's the hate hate is strong but the the mistrust and the you know I guess the barbs across the visual barbs across the table was remarkable and everyone was real civil in the room but I mean you couldn't really get anyone to talk about anything you know anything you really agree they agreed on was you know it would be great to have a neutral third party person to come in and like compare technologies they almost wanted a consumer reports of technology and we're like okay we have a lab we're not doing that that's not something that we're doing but it was it was it was a it was at least a bit of a conversation it took another two years years before we came up, became the idea again in 2006. And I think you had automatic steering popping up and you had all these technologies starting to roll out. And a lot of that stuff was started by the smaller companies, right? I mean, you had a company like Outback that came up with the steering packages, the steering kits that we go into old machines. And all of a sudden, the pressure was really on companies to bring automatic steering to the front. And not just, it's not $100,000 unit anymore. It's this thing you can pop in. And maybe it didn't work fabulously, but growers got a taste of it. They're like, holy cow, this is amazing. This is great. So people started wanting kind of collaborating, worked together a little bit more. And I think that was part of it. But all of a sudden, we had 13 companies in a room. And they were all paid members and ready to go. So we were the dog that caught the car, so to speak. And what do we do with this thing? But we did a lot of research. We tried to get inside of growers heads of why they were adapting, why they weren't adapting, you know, all the different crop markets. And we did some good work. It was still pretty difficult, but it was the beginning, I think, of you saw, you seeing companies come together. And you know, and Agayway simultaneously in the tens and in 10 to 12 to 14, you're seeing a lot more collaboration coming from the standpoint of data and understanding that we were hitting a dead end if we weren't sharing information and machinery wasn't working together. So it was interesting to see it come from a comfortable circle from we're competing head to head and going to kill each other in the best. You know, the last man standing is going to win versus collaborating and figuring out how to work together. Knowing that some companies aren't going to survive, but you know, the best technologies are eventually going to win out. So that's kind of the, it would be my earliest observations of that. The evolution is to that point. And even to the point now that there are, there are in essence API companies that that's all they do is they build those bridges between products, softwares, all of those types of things. So that it is relatively easy to interchange those technologies to the brands. Right. Yeah. And I think, you know, the observation there is that, and that's great. But it tends to be more one off, right? You're doing it by a company, by company basis as opposed to having a collective, you know, a collective solution for everyone. So we're, you know, it's a step. It is, it's not quite there, but it is a positive step. It's just, it's a grunt out though, you know, you're, you're, you got to keep, you got to keep churning these things out for individuals. And it's, it's, you know, it's one way to do it, but it's certainly not the ideal way. But it is good that it's happening. It shows the potential of one you can make these things talk to each other what the benefit is. It's better than those visual barbs you had in that first meeting. Yeah, I remember that meeting because I think I was there. Were you there? I think so. Oh, I'm curious on that Ag Tech Institute. How would that be received today differently than what it was? It's hard, it's hard to say. I mean, we had, I mean, the mission at the time was just, let's talk, you know, I mean, that was, it was a fairly easy straightforward mission. I think, you know, and it, for me, I get ways is appealing because that's a similar thing. You're, you're getting people together. Everyone is, everyone's members. They bought in. They're there to collaborate, which is great. I don't, it's hard to know what, whether it's something like that would be meaningful anymore these days. I, I, you know, what are the, what are the areas that folks would want to collaborate on that they'd want to kind of work on, work on together. I'm not, you know, I think we hit it, we just hit it at a moment in time where we had a lot of people that were just like, yeah, we just need to talk to each other. Maybe we won't necessarily get a lot done, but we, we need to be talking and figuring things out. We just don't know what that, that thing is. I think what you said a lot of, I've been, I've been taking a lot of notes. One of the things you said was the challenge for farmers to sift through, sort through impactful tech. And we're, so that made me think back, okay, what has really changed an egg, go back to 120 years? And I wrote down, I couldn't, I'm missing something, but I wrote down four egg tech, four items and egg tech has changed over 100 years. 1900s horse power detractors, that was a major change in technology, sea genetics, when did that start really making improvements? Dave 70s, early like that, 80s, 80s, 70s to 80s, yeah. GPS and auto steer was the next while this could change the way I farm. And then data collection, I'm gonna say the last, that's always been an issue, but data collection is really huge now for yield monitors, chemical applications. And then you get into this AI thing that we just touched on a little bit. I think AI could be really our fifth bullet point of the game changer in egg tech. And I've done a lot of research on, which we talked earlier, a little bit, somebody egg tech laser weaters. So instead of going down to field, spraying chemicals, all that, there's a couple of companies now, Dave, that are actually investing in laser technology. - Yes. - Instead of, I actually presented to the world's largest chemical dealers last year down in Georgia. And I said, if these laser weaters come into play based on AI, so I can monitor plant from the weed, what would that do to your business and room fell silent, Paul? I mean, they were quiet and was like, well, that would have a major impact on our business model. So what you said, and that's where I'm really stuck on that, egg precision egg institute, how to farm or sift through flash in a pan technology, 'cause you look at, look at all the new articles being written on egg tech, but really we've had five things now. That have been major impacts, tractor and seed genetics, GPS, autosteer, data aggregation so we can do more. And now AI is coming to play. - Yeah, I think it just, stuff rises to the top that's immediately apparent, right? I mean, I will say I left that air conditioning, air conditioning, because air conditioning led to closed up cabs, which I mean, it was, that is so enormous. I mean, the older farmers aren't here anymore to talk about how it used to be to not have an enclosed cab. Oh, you did too. Maybe I'm wrong. So, yeah. And think about that too. I mean, and you think about in today's world, you talk to people and oh well, they're in that nice air condition cab and they've got a stereo and they've got XM radio and all of the things, but they don't realize that how many farmers had breathing issues because they were out in the dust all the time. I don't have some of my hearing because of that, because you're in that high wine of a combine or a tractor or whatever. And so there were health issues associated with not having a cab. And we look at the technologies and I did a presentation one time and it was evolution versus revolution. - Oh, yeah. - And you know, you look at a tractor, we look at the tractors that were, you know, the first ones after, you know, that competed with horses. And to a certain degree, yeah, the technology is different, the engines are different, all of those things, but a tractor really isn't that much different now as they were pretty then. So it was an evolution of the updates. When you go to a database, even Google, I'll use Google or a browser of a search engine to AI, they're not the same. And I guess where I want to move into that AI conversation, we're gonna pause our conversation with Paul for this episode. Join us next time as we continue the conversation with Paul and dive into AI and the pros and the pitfalls on the next episode of Vision Protection Respectives. Have a great day. [BLANK_AUDIO]