$13 Trillion: The Reality Of Virtual Farming

Forty Chances was the title of a best-selling book published back in 2013. It was written by Howard Buffett—farmer and son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. The book’s story lines took deep dives into subjects such as world hunger and soil health, but in just two words, the book’s title transmitted the most powerful message of all. Its embedded inference is that typical farmers can expect to have about 40 growing seasons in their lifetimes, giving them just 40 chances to improve on every harvest.

Forty is not a big number.

Think about it. What if baseball great Hank Aaron had gotten only 40 at bats? What if Henry Ford had only produced 40 Model Ts? What if Captain “Sully” Sullenberger had made only 40 airline flights in his lifetime? Would the “Miracle on the Hudson” have even happened? 

However, when it comes to farming, experiencing 40 or more harvests is considered a divine gift. Trust me when I say that farmers have every season ranked in their minds from best to worst. And no matter how good their very best harvest was, an inner voice questions, “What could I have done just a little better?” 

With only 40 or so opportunities, there is bound to be a lot of pent up “what-ifs” left on the kitchen table. But what if there was a way to experience more? What if there was a place where you were not constrained by the Earth’s journey around the sun, the rules of Mother Nature or even time itself. An alternative universe per se.

I know it sounds a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, but such a universe is really being built today. It is called the metaverse, and it’s about to rock everyone’s world—farmers’ worlds included.

In lay terms, the metaverse will basically be a virtual world that is the digital twin of our real one. It is not about our current mundane digital life of checking the apps on our phones, streaming Netflix or digitally signing a contract via DocuSign. No, it’s about directly connecting our day-to-day lives with a digital universe. The metaverse is so immersive that its builders claim you will not be able to tell where the physical universe ends and the metaverse begins.

The metaverse is the inevitable next step that will bring us even closer together!

The physical world has become more like the digital one and vice versa. Consider these points. Artificial intelligence already helps run our lives. Virtual reality immerses people in an artificial environment while they’re physically located somewhere else. Smart devices allow objects to communicate without any human input. When all these things converge, you have this digital “big bang” moment.

The gods of the digital universe are busy at work to deliver such a moment with plenty of incentive to make it happen.

In a forecast published in March, financial giant Citi said the metaverse economy could be an $8 trillion to $13 trillion total addressable market by 2030. Citi’s broad vision of the metaverse includes smart manufacturing technology, virtual advertising, online events including concerts and digital forms of money such as bitcoin.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is so betting the farm that this revolution is real that his company literally changed its name to Meta in 2021. But Meta (aka Facebook) is not alone. The usual digital disruptors—Microsoft, Apple, Amazon along with heavyweight hardware and software virtual gaming companies such as NVIDIA and Epic Games—are all among the top 10 companies racing to morph reality.

Because all of this sounds like something out of the Disney sci-fi movie “Tron,” the traditional agricultural crowd is saying hold your horses—nothing is closer to the real world than farming, and you can’t change that. Not so fast. The blurring of agriculture’s reality is already happening in the area of indoor farming. According to a research report from MarketsandMarkets, the market value of indoor agricultural technology will reach $24.8 billion in 2026. Already, this segment uses augmented reality to digitize and monitor crop physiology, growth processes and related data. Everything from training to traceability to the customer experience will be wrapped up in the growing market of food that is produced indoors.

Want further proof?

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers says the construction, agriculture and manufacturing sectors are poised to be greatly affected in this technological shift. In the ag sector, farmers have the potential to create an authentic digital replica of their farms—everything down to the pickup truck and the dog. Think of it as morphing the classic SimFarm video game with James Cameron’s movie “Avatar.” The benefits could be real and immediate. For example, farmers could see how new farm equipment would boost efficiency before purchasing. Thinking about a new high-speed planter? Have your avatar take it to the field first in the metaverse. 

The metaverse may also give agriculture a way to connect with its city cousins and better tell the story of where our food comes from. There are already QR codes showing up on food packages that can bring the consumer directly to the farm where the primary ingredients were produced—whether that be a corn farm in Illinois or a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Such a virtual experience finally opens the opportunity to bring the farm closer to today’s dinner table and tell our story firsthand.

How the industry embraces the metaverse will determine the technology’s true impact.

Accepting the metaverse will require the respect of technology and data like never before. However, the benefits could alter the landscape of agriculture in the real world for the good and implement change faster than anyone thought possible. Just think if you could experiment with a different cropping practice before actually trying it in the real world. Advancements in sustainability practices, carbon sequestration, water quality, soil health, plant genetics and machine efficiencies can all be put to the test in the metaverse—thousands of different scenarios tried—in a matter days, weeks or months. You don’t have to wait years. In the metaverse, anything will be possible, and farmers certainly will have more than 40 chances to get it right.