Agriculture Technology Advancements Revolutionize Mississippi Ag Industry

In partnership with: Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce

In recent years, technological advancements have played a pivotal role in reshaping the landscape of the agricultural industry in Mississippi and beyond.

Agriculture Technology at Triple Run Farms

Adron Belk is a second-generation farmer who grew up working alongside his dad on their family farm. He now employs modern technology on Triple Run Farms, his grain farm in the Mississippi Delta. Belk is married to his high-school sweetheart, Betsy, and together they’re raising four tech-savvy ag insiders as the next generation on the family farm.

Technology keeps Triple Run Farms running efficiently.

“Probably 90% of our use is John Deere Operations Center,” Belk explains. “We keep track of where different varieties, practices and chemical applications go. It gives me all the data and statistics off each tractor, including fuel usage, time consumption, area worked and area left to work.”

All the data is conveniently located right on his phone, which means that no cabinet overflowing with paper files is necessary.

“I can even pull up data from four or five years ago,” Belk says. “We can tell for each field what variety we planted, on which date and what each field yielded. We also keep track of when we sprayed it, what we sprayed on it and the weather over the course of that year.”

Technology also aids with irrigation and efficient water use.

“Using a platform called AgSense, I monitor my irrigation pivots remotely,” Belk explains. “I can stop them, speed them up, slow them down or change direction remotely. If we’re not on the farm, and in the middle of the night get a big rain event, we can turn those pivots off. That saves us from pumping water until the next morning.”

Agricultural Autonomy Institute at MSU

Mississippi State University formally established the Agricultural Autonomy Institute in 2023 with the intention of supporting modern farmers just like Belk. Envisioned by its current director Dr. Alex Thomasson, it’s the only interdisciplinary research center in the U.S. that’s focused on enhancing on-farm precision and efficiency with autonomous technologies.

“We started with seed funds from the Robert M. Hearin Foundation,” Thomasson says. “We’re mainly focused on economic development, and it takes on three aspects.”

First is engagement with corporations working in agricultural autonomy, including drone manufacturers, tractor and harvester manufacturers, and other smaller customers. The second aspect is internal Mississippi State University research on agricultural autonomy, and the third is workforce development.

“If we’re able to adopt technology in such a way that it increases yields or reduces associated production costs, that translates into financial benefit to the grower,” says Associate Director Madison Dixon.

“If we use smaller machines to harvest at optimal times, not only do we have better crop quality benefiting those small- to mid-sized growers, we’ve got more crop yield overall. That results in more affordable prices for consumers.”

Perfect Timing

The Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce (MDAC) is proud of MSU’s groundbreaking research and development.

“We were privileged to get a special exemption from MDAC’s Bureau of Plant Industry so that we can work with spray drones,” Dixon says. Spray drones demonstrate the safety benefits of autonomous technologies. “You can use them to spray in locations that are dangerous for traditional ag aviators.”

MSU was strategically poised to launch the Agricultural Autonomy Institute and support the university’s broader land-grant mission.

“Combine the state of agriculture and the challenges growers face, the accessibility of new technologies and the ability for those technologies to help address and overcome the challenges,” Dixon says. “Then MSU having the pieces already in place to be a leader in this area all made this a perfect storm for such an institute to come in and to fill an immediate need and have a real benefit.”