This year my annual pilgrimage to Montana involves attending the Montana Stockgrowers Association (MSGA) mid year meeting. This came about largely at the suggestion of Walker Milhoan, an acquaintance that I met through Twitter. I am hoping to get a chance to sit down with him for a few minutes and talk about the future of technology in ranching. I also hope to meet and chat with Ryan Goodman, Manager of Communications at MSGA.
I have had long running discussions with both of these men about the use of smartphones, computers, and technology in general in the ranching industry. While the farming industry has been adopting various technologies pretty readily for the past 10 to 15 years, ranching has been more resistive. Recent developments such as smartphones, cloud computing, and technologies associated with drones are making technology a lot more accessible to the rancher as well as providing significantly more benefit.
I am looking forward to meeting MSGA members and finding out how much of a role technology plays on their ranches today. I would like to help ranchers better incorporate the resources that are available online and through the use of computers to improve production and profitability.