For some, a career in agriculture is passed down through generations. For others, it is an opportunity that pops up at the right moment. Don Freiling, a computer engineer and the director of embedded systems at AIRM Consulting had spent more than two decades working in the mobile computing industry before making the switch to digital agriculture and joining AIRM Consulting. Here, Don talks about the importance of digital agriculture both in his work and as a whole.
Describe your job or product in one sentence.
At AIRM, I am the embedded software lead on a team responsible for the design, implementation, and productization of a crop monitoring system for the collection of high quality, georeferenced, hyper-localized crop metrics.
Where did you grow up? Was it an agriculture or urban environment?
I was born and raised in the urban environment of Winnipeg.
What was your dream job when you were a kid?
To be an engineer. I was always interested in electronics and software.
What was your first job in the agriculture or agri-food sector?
My first job in the agriculture field started in 2022 when I joined AIRM.
What brought you to your current role?
After working for over 25 years applying my engineering skills in the mobile computing industry, I decided it was time for a change. When the opportunity at AIRM presented itself, I was intrigued about the possible benefits that technology could bring to the field of agriculture
How does digital agriculture or agtech play a role in your current job?
It is central to what we do. Our goal is to employ the latest sensing and IoT technology to collect accurate, georeferenced agricultural data. We use our collected data, along with external data sources, as input to AI/ML models for classification and prediction. The output from our models has applicability in many areas including crop management, crop health monitoring, insurance, optimization of inputs, and more.
What advice would you give someone considering a career in digital agriculture?
Many people assume that agricultural technology is only applied to the farming implements needed to plant and harvest crops. I would advise anyone considering a career in digital agriculture to consider all the other aspects of agriculture that can benefit from technology. These include IoT, Drone and Earth Observation (OE) for crop monitoring of phenological stage, disease pressures and pest pressures, optimizations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, automated feeding and irrigation systems, climate monitoring and modelling, genetic engineering and breeding technologies, blockchain for quality traceability and distribution logistics, mobile apps connected to IoT sensors to improve the productivity of agronomists, AI and Machine Learning for yield prediction and more.
What first piqued your interest in agriculture and agri-food?
My colleague, Elwood, and I worked together at another company before Elwood took a position at AIRM. I was speaking with him about what he was doing and it piqued my interest . Up until then, I assumed that any kind of technology that was being applied in agriculture was related to making a combine work better. I was surprised to find out how much digital technology and information technology provided meaningful insights for a lot of the different stakeholders involved in agriculture. Prior to that I thought that working in agriculture you would be an agronomist or a producer or someone working in transportation and logistics. It was really interesting to find out that there was actually really cool stuff going on right here in Winnipeg that could use the skills that I had built over the years.
How would you describe digital agriculture to someone outside the sector?
Digital Agriculture is the application of the latest information technologies with the goal of improving all facets of food production.
What’s your favorite part about working in digital agriculture and agri-food?
Learning more about the agricultural industry. To effectively apply technology to any pursuit, it is necessary to appreciate it from the perspective of all stakeholders. I have enjoyed meeting with and learning from all manner of participants from farmers to insurance actuaries.
Why do you think digital agriculture is important, more than ever?
Considering climate change and a growing world population, I would put food security at the top of the list of global concerns. We must find ways to produce higher yields while using less inputs and producing less harmful outputs. We must provide producers with tools that foster success such as crop and weather monitoring, crop management recommendations, flexible insurance, and so on. In addition to production, we must also work to ensure verifiable quality and to optimize distribution. The application of digital technologies can benefit all the above.
This profile is part of EMILI’s This is Agriculture series, highlighting talented and diverse individuals across the digital agriculture sector. While individuals working in agriculture come from a variety of backgrounds, they share a common interest in growing and strengthening Canadian agriculture to ensure an environmentally and economically sustainable future for generations to come.