Paying For Irrigation Automation

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Farmers who've already invested in automation systems like Netafim or Wiseconn can now make those technologies pay off faster.

The program is currently available in PG&E and Southern California Edison service areas, with expansion to other states planned for 2026. An energy management company is partnering with AgTech providers to help farmers earn money from their existing equipment. Tyler Nuss, a vegetable grower in Northern California, explains how the integration works.

Nuss... "And what, what we're doing and expanding right now is our ecosystem of, of Ag tech partners. So integrating our software platform where we connect to the utility and then our platform connects to on-farm. Agtech automation, right? So we, we partner with the likes of Netafim and Wise Con and so where customers have already have controls of their, of their pumps, we can tap into those via a software integration so that they can participate without having to, you know, go off and manually turn off a pump, for example."

The partnership changes the ROI calculation for farmers considering these systems.