Our visit to the Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls proved to be a highly informative one.  In my opinion, the most interesting subject material covered by Professor Kevin Butt was precision agriculture, which involves the use of GPS as well as other tools to improve the efficiency of the farming operation.  This may include, but is not limited to, the collection of crop yields, the number of seeds being planted, the areas already planted, and the amount of pesticide required to get the maximum yield (based on soil composition).  Of course, the coolest thing is that the tractor drives itself based on GPS . . . some tractors even turn around by themselves and don’t require a driver!   I was really fascinated by the innovations that have been made by the companies involved in manufacturing farming equipment.  Especially interesting was the way that computer technology is being incorporated into the tractors, combines, etc.  The John Deere video that Professor Butt showed us about the future of farming and how Deere products are envisioned blew me away.  In the video, John Deere creates an image of farming in the future that is highly computerized and attempts to eliminate the factor of human error by it with the pinpoint accuracy of Deere’s computerized equipment.  It seems that the responsibility of the farmer is diminishing to that of a supervisor who oversees the operations of drone-like machines, which do the actual work.  Technology is leading the farming industry in a direction that is focused on eliminating the role of the farmer, and it makes me wonder, when will this technology reach a point at which essentially the entire human aspect is eliminated?  It’s almost like the movie Terminator, in which human innovation creates a society completely based on computer operations and results in a war between robots and humans over control of the planet.  I doubt that advanced tractors will start to attack their farmers, but if the farming industry is becoming this reliant on computer technology, where are other types of industries pushing their technology?  As impressive as the advances are that the farming industry is making, it does make me worry about society’s ability to use the technology it creates in a way that does not come back to haunt it it in the future.