Driving by potato fields near Idaho Falls, Idaho, planted on rolling hills, the first thing one notices is just how straight the rows are. What skill level must a tractor driver possess to manage such a feat? Actually, it’s not the tractor driver that guides the machine; rather, it is a GPS receiver built into the tractor’s steering system that accomplishes this miracle.
Conceptualized in 1973 to overcome the limitations of previous navigation systems, the global positioning system (GPS) is a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location information in all weather conditions, anywhere on Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. By taking a constant millisecond read—fix—on the satellites, the tractor’s GPS receiver, by knowing the tractor’s position a millisecond ago, notifies the steering system exactly where the tractor should be a millisecond from now. Hook enough milliseconds together between fixed points at either end of the field and you have navigated a straight line, accurate to within parts of an inch.
The GPS phenomenon is just one in an unending series of IT revolutions taking place all around us. These improvements form a virtual informational tsunami. Consider that in virtually any one of life’s innumerable aspects, one need not march into the future uninformed. In fact, consider that if you knew exact information about food and exercise, you soon could achieve a strong and healthy physique. Consider that if you knew the exact information about the stock market, you would soon be living in a mansion, fully equipped with butler and maids. Consider that if you knew exact geological information, you soon would discover numbers of oil wells and mineral deposits. Consider that if you knew the number of potato acres that you and fellow growers needed to plant to satisfy the consumer while stabilizing your farm’s returns, your strengthening equity situation would soon become an annual celebration.
Rick Warren, author of the best seller The Purpose Driven Life, said, “We are all products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” My take on Mr. Warren’s statement is that we don’t have to think tomorrow the way we thought yesterday. We don’t have to act tomorrow the way we acted yesterday. We don’t have to accept that yesterday’s results will be tomorrow’s results. The world is moving forward, and we can too. Above all else, the world is moving forward more abundantly informed than ever before, covering us with information for extraordinarily good decision making.
United Potato Growers of America was formed as an information stronghold, charged specifically with gathering and disseminating supply and demand information about potato markets to growers. Just like the GPS information system that guides the tractor straight across the field, UPGA’s potato supply/demand information system can guide each year’s crop to a profitable place. The information train is leaving the station, and it can take your farm’s finances to a place worthy of the risk inherent is growing potatoes.
You can get on board and thrill to the ride, or not. Your choice.