How New Technologies Save Farmers and Ranchers Time, Water, and Money

The realities of modern farming and ranching mean that producers are working toward slim margins with very few hired hands to help them get there. Every hour is precious on farms and ranches across the Mountain West, and any innovation that makes an operation more efficient—saving time, water, fuel, and more—is welcome.

This is especially true given how the workforce has evolved since the middle of the 20th century. According to a 2023 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, farm labor—which includes livestock workers—shrunk significantly in the late 20th century. In 1950, there were nearly 10 million farm laborers in the United States; by 2000, there were just over 3 million. And while over the past two decades, those numbers have leveled off, wages have not kept pace with jobs in other sectors. In 2022, the average farm wage in the United States was $16.62 an hour, equal to just 60 percent of the average wage of non-farming jobs. These disparities make it harder to attract and retain quality livestock workers. 

Fewer workers make the task of monitoring and managing water—an especially critical job in the face of a decades-long drought—that much more difficult. But that hasn’t stopped farmers and ranchers in the West. In 2023, through its Field Work initiative, the LOR Foundation provided up to $10,000 each to more than 60 ranchers throughout the Mountain West to implement innovative water practices on their land. The case studies below highlight some of the projects that focused on labor (and water) savings; and their successes buoy hope for a more resilient future for the West. 

Monitoring Water Levels in Wagon Mound, New Mexico 

When you’re working on a 120,000-acre ranch, nothing is close by. Just ask Ariel Greenwood, who with her husband, Sam Ryerson, operates Grass Nomads LLC, a livestock consulting company that runs about 1,000 head of cattle on a high-elevation ranch just outside of Wagon Mound, New Mexico. One particularly far-flung resource is a 9,000-gallon water tank in the middle of the ranch. To reach it from their house on the east side of the ranch, Greenwood and Ryerson must undertake a 40-minute, one-way journey across two-track best navigated by pickup truck or horseback. 

Because of the size of the property, Greenwood must be deliberate with her plans every day, as accessing remote parts of the ranch can be extremely time-consuming. “The only way we’re able to make it work economically is by making good plans,” she says. “Part of that is knowing exactly what you’re doing when you start the day. If you have a surprise, it can derail things.”

That remote 9,000-gallon water tank—which is filled by a well and pump a mile away—has provided plenty of unpleasant surprises over the years: Sometimes, the level might be too low, meaning the cows wouldn’t have enough to drink. Other times, the tank might overflow onto the surrounding dirt—meaning Greenwood’s team could lose up to 2,000 gallons of water in any given day. In years past, the only way to check the level was to drive the 40 minutes out to the tank, a journey she would undertake at least every other day. 

A potential solution to this problem emerged when Greenwood appeared on the Doomer Optimism podcast about two years ago. As she discussed her ecological restoration practices in New Mexico, it reached the ears of an innovator on the opposite side of the country. Donald Blair, an independent open-source technology developer based in Massachusetts, listened to the episode and emailed Greenwood to see if there were any innovations that might improve her operation. “When I contacted Ariel,” Blair says. “I wanted to learn more about what she was doing and be involved in such an enlightened approach to ranching.” 

Blair and Greenwood workshopped a potentially transformative project. What if there was a way to monitor the level of the water tank remotely, something that could save Greenwood hundreds of hours and thousands of gallons of water over the course of a year? Together, they laid plans. Using Field Work funding, Blair built a satellite water level monitoring system in Massachusetts and shipped it to New Mexico, where Greenwood installed the hardware. The system they built relies on a sensor inside of the storage tank that sends an electrical signal to the water’s surface. The sensor measures the distance between the top of the tank and the water, calculates how full the tank is, then transmits that data via a satellite modem to an open source website. “Every morning and every afternoon, we get a data reading,” Greenwood says. “That allows us to make better work plans for the day.” 

It also makes the ranching operation more efficient. “This saves dozens of trips every year to check the tank. We’re saving water, we’re saving time, we’re saving wear and tear on our vehicles,” Greenwood says. “And it’s allowing us to feel confident putting more cattle together. It’s benefitting the range in a way that wouldn’t be feasible otherwise.”

A Solar-Powered Pump in Eden, Montana 

Katie Pribyl operates an 8,000-acre ranch with her family just outside of Great Falls, Montana, and in a summer pasture where they keep about 60 pairs of cows and calves, there is only one source of water. The 1,200-gallon cistern is pump-fed water 120-foot-well, that used to require daily drives out several miles to start the generator. Like Greenwood in New Mexico, they never knew how much water storage capacity they were dealing with, so they would ballpark how much gas they needed for the generator, hoping by the time the generator ran out of fuel the tank would be mostly full—but not overflowing. 

It was an imprecise method that cost the Pribyls time—not to mention fuel and water—every single day. “We needed to find a reliable way to get water into the tanks without going out there every day to run a generator,” Pribyl says, “while also saving man hours and being sustainable.” 

A Soil Monitoring System in Caldwell, Idaho

Sean Wilke, a longtime farmer who grows corn and alfalfa on about 550 acres near the shores of Lake Lowell, knows that attracting new labor can be extremely difficult in today’s economy. “It’s always been a challenge, but more so in the past 10 years,” he says. “Especially in agriculture, it’s tough to find someone for the rates that are out there right now. Plus, the work is knowledge-specific, and if you hire someone, you often need to spend a couple years training them.” 

So Wilke runs the farm together with just one salaried farm manager. Because he has so few hands, he welcomes an opportunity to make the operation more efficient. “We’ve put a lot of investment into infrastructure to make up for lack of labor,” he says. 

One of those investments was made possible by the Field Work initiative. Among the most important factors for growing corn are soil moisture and temperature (Wilke says he needs a minimum soil temperature of 55 degrees to plant corn). Historically, Wilke and his farm manager have gathered that data by hand, probing the soil at random, monitoring the temperature, and trying to determine if there was enough water in the ground to produce healthy crops. Not only was that data inexact, collecting it was time-consuming. Wilke estimates that over the course of a growing season, he’d spend about 10 hours per week—or 200 hours in a 20-week season—taking these measurements.

With his Field Work funding, Wilke purchased a Davis Instruments solar-powered monitoring system with sensors installed a few inches below the soil across his property. The system now measures moisture content, temperature, and other data points, and then sends that out across a radio-based network where Wilke receives it remotely. He checks the data every day, and if the temperatures are not ideal for germination, Wilke can shift his planting schedule to maximize crop yield. The upgrade cost about $10,000 and will save Wilke significantly more in the long run. If he were to pay someone with specialized knowledge to take these readings by hand, he estimates it would cost about $15,000 each growing season. 

Moreover, the technology makes it easier to track crop production. For instance, if part of his field has low yield, he can now isolate specific factors to see if there are issues with irrigation or soil temperature. And if some of his soil has high (or too low) water content, the innovation allows him to turn on or off his pivot irrigation system—which at full-strength delivers 7,000 gallons a minute to his fields.