GRAND MARSH - When Joe Paul and Megan and Eric Wallendal talk shop, it's in the language of fertilizers and nutrients. They're talking about their crops and the current status of their fields. And as they do, they reference the image files collected by a drone flying over the cornfields at Wallendal Farms.
The Wallendals are focused on growing the food, while Paul's three-foot fixed-wing drone flies over their fields, gathering crop information that will help the farmers make important business and production decisions. The drone “gives producers a whole new view of their operation," Paul said. They see things in a new way from the sky.
Paul grew up on a family farm in New Lisbon, a Juneau County city of about 2,500. As a young man, he lived in several states and became a flight instructor. But about five years ago he returned to the family farm. The farm was sold in August 2016 and a few months later Paul launched his new drone-based agriculture imaging and data service, FlightSight, as a way to meld his passions for aviation and farming.
At 27, Paul is the kind of young professional many in Wisconsin are trying to keep here. After years of working on his traditional flight career in places like Michigan, Arizona, and San Diego, he's back in the county where he grew up and where his family lives. “Being in the country and seeing the food being produced, there’s a real satisfaction with growing a good crop,” he said. “We no longer own a farm, but to be able to be in the business and involved in agriculture, it feels good.”
State agencies and agribusiness advocates have been working to get young people to look at careers in the industry, pointing to science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers. Jobs in the industry can range from working with animal genetics and agronomy to other professional skills like accounting, marketing and sales.
And now, drone operator.
The number of farmers, and farmers, has been shrinking in the state and nation for decades. Wisconsin had 68,900 farms in 2015, 100 fewer than the year before — and 7,600 fewer than 2005, according to state figures. Even with a diminishing number of farms, agriculture has an annual economic impact of about $88.3 billion in the state.
For hands-on farming, new farmers face high start-up costs: equipment, land rent, animals and ongoing costs for things like fertilizer, fuel and seed can make going into the field a daunting task for farmers who didn’t grow up with family in the business. Adding to all those factors, a diminishing number of young people have a direct connection to a farm, unlike in decades past, when grandparents or other relatives may have owned a farm.
On a sunny day in late June, Paul is on edge of a deep green cornfield growing from the sandy soil of central Wisconsin. After programming the flight pattern of the drone on a laptop on the front seat of his van, he picks up the black vehicle walks into an open area. Holding the drone at waist height, he gives it three shakes to tell it's time to fly, then takes a few fast steps and casts the tool skyward, its small engine emitting a high-pitched whine as it takes off into the sky. Another day at work in the ag sector.
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