Growers and farmers have 5 main types of risks to manage: financial risks, legal risks, health and safety risks, market and economic risks, and crop production risks. While crop insurance provides financial protection for machinery, land, and livestock, it cannot prevent losses. Effective risk management requires early identification of threats and proactive response strategies.
Identifying and managing risks is an essential part of day-to-day life for growers and farmers. The crop production risks they need to identify are:
There are strategic actions growers can take to mitigate overall crop risks. This includes crop diversification by growing a variety of crops across their farms and also planting as many disease-resistant varieties as possible.
However, unpredictable events impacting crop health such as pests, diseases and weather conditions such as frost cannot always be planned for, so growers have to manage these risks as soon as possible to minimize crop loss.
If growers can receive alert information on risks to their crops early enough, such as through weather early warning systems, then they can look at ways to protect vulnerable crops ahead of extreme weather hitting, or they can mitigate diseases or pests before damage really sets in. This means growers can take proactive measures resulting in less crop loss, and increase their control over outcomes during the crop growing cycles.
Traditionally growers have needed technology like local sensors or weather stations in their fields to provide data on potential risks to their crops. But now tools like GrowPilot, powered by data from low-Earth orbit satellites and advanced AI models, can deliver local forecasts and predictive alerts for open field growers before risks hit.
GrowPilot delivers field-specific insights for crops including risk alerts for:
Receiving these risk alerts early gives growers time to take action and minimize damage to crops. These actions can vary depending on the weather event or type of pest or crop disease.
Once alerted to frost conditions, growers can use overhead irrigation, wind machines or fans to mix warmer air from higher altitudes with the colder air at the ground level, or use burners or other heaters to raise the ambient air temperature.
Once alerted, growers can manage boytritis, by reducing relative humidity immediately, drying the crops or applying preventative fungicides.
Powdery mildew can be managed with good air circulation, proper watering (avoiding foliage), and organic treatments like horticultural oils or fungicides.
To manage heat stress growers can implement consistent, deep watering in early mornings or evenings, apply organic mulch to cool soil, and using shading during peak sun times.
What if you could predict crop damage 48 hours before it happens? Start your free trial of GrowPilot today to increase crop health and reduce your crop losses.