15 Minutes With Technology Leader Adam Gittins

While adopting new technology may be daunting for many farmers, Adam Gittins is an old pro. 

A longtime employee of HTS Ag, a precision agriculture technology company in Harlan, Iowa, Gittins purchased a majority interest in the company at the beginning of 2024. Now company president, he sees the impact of technology on agriculture every day. 

“Technology has been a very integrated and critical part of my operation for a number of years,” he says. “I’ve viewed it from the lens of ‘How do I enable technology to create a return?’ That could be a financial return; it could be making something quicker or easier. It could be a cost savings or an increase in revenue. So there’s multiple ways to look at how I might see a payback from an investment in technology.” 

Successful Farming sat down with Gittins to discuss the importance of technology and how it’s impacted farming’s future. 

SF: How has technology changed the way we farm and how does it keep farmers successful?

AG: Technology has now permeated into every aspect of agriculture. Autosteer goes across the field in every pass. Variable-rate technology helps us apply exactly the right products in exactly the right places. Enhancements to planters allow us to more precisely place the seed at faster rates. Even things like automation on grain bins, where we’re not having to turn the fans on and off manually, can save us a tremendous amount of money. We’re seeing so much of that automation, and it is drastically improving what we can do compared to typical or historic ways of farming. 

SF: What is the one piece of technology you, as a farmer, couldn’t give up? 

AG: Maybe this is cheating as an answer, but if I had to narrow it down to one piece of technology, I would say the data. I collect data from the farm operation during every pass, and that is the one thing that I can look at and review and figure out how we can do better. I can analyze and dig into that data and be able to make improvements as needed. 

SF: How has your involvement with HTS Ag impacted the way you view technology?

AG: It has impacted my own farming tremendously. I need to understand the technology very well. I need to be able to explain to our customers how it works and how they can see the benefits from it. I don’t want to go out and sell the next flashy thing. I want to understand where the payback is, and I want to be able to share what the financial benefit is for our customers. 

We don’t just sell the equipment. We actually use it. Not only can we make it work, we can share with them how it will make their life easier, how it will improve their yield, or how it will cut their cost. We have that real-time data because we’re farmers too.

SF: What are the challenges to introducing new technologies to farmers and their farms? 

AG: Familiarity is probably one of the biggest challenges. We are bringing in something that disrupts their habits. In disrupting their normal workflow or their normal pattern, they’ve got to relearn how [doing] things utilizing technology may make the process significantly easier. Getting over that education and adoption hurdle is probably one of the hardest things. 

The other challenge is connectivity. That is improving. 4G is getting a little more reliable, and 5G adds a lot of speed, but there’s still some rural areas where connectivity can be a challenge. That’s one of the hurdles as we try to integrate and automate more things. We need that equipment to be connected, so if we don’t have good connectivity, that can cause problems. 

SF: What keeps you excited and motivated to be a part of the agriculture industry? 

AG: At the end of the day it’s the people. When I can bring out a solution and solve a challenge that a farmer is facing using technology, to see and hear their appreciation is just really tremendous for me.