If there’s one industry that’s been quietly transformed by industrial controls over the past 20 years, it’s agriculture. I’ve spent 12 years in the industrial controls space, working directly with farms ranging from 500-acre family corn operations in Iowa to 10,000-acre commercial vegetable spreads in the Central Valley, and I can tell you: the days of guessing when to turn on an irrigation pump or manually adjusting fertilizer rates are long gone. What started as a handful of basic programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in processing plants has grown into a network of interconnected controls that touch every stage of growing, harvesting, and bringing food to our tables. Let me walk you through how this works, from seed to shelf, and why industrial controls aren’t just a nice-to-have for farmers anymore—they’re the backbone of reliable, sustainable food production. Industrial Controls
I first saw this shift firsthand in 2011, when I worked with a small tomato farm outside of Modesto, California, that was struggling with two big problems: wasting water and over-fertilizing their crops, which was eating into their profits and hurting their soil. Back then, they were using a manual irrigation system—each field had a valve someone had to turn on and off, and they just followed a rough schedule based on the weather. One summer, a heat wave hit early, and their part-time worker forgot to open the valves for three days; by the time we got there, 12 acres of tomatoes were wilted beyond saving, and they lost almost $40,000 in a single week. That’s when we started talking about integrating basic industrial controls into their operation, and it changed everything for them.
Today, that same farm uses a combination of smart sensors, PLCs, and human-machine interfaces (HMIs) that we helped install. The system pulls real-time data from soil moisture sensors, weather stations, and even satellite imagery, then automatically adjusts irrigation rates. If a spot in a field has higher clay content that holds more water, the system slows the flow there so it doesn’t pool and cause root rot. In the last 10 years, they’ve cut water use by 32% and reduced fertilizer application by 28%—numbers that their accountant can directly tie to their annual net profit. That’s not just a win for the farm; it’s a win for the aquifer that supplies their water, too.
Irrigation is probably the most visible use of industrial controls in fields, but it’s far from the only one. For row crops like corn, soy, and wheat, farmers are using controlled planting systems that adjust seed depth, spacing, and even fertilizer placement mid-row based on soil conditions. A lot of these systems use small, rugged PLCs housed in the tractors themselves, which sync up with GPS to make sure every seed is placed exactly where it needs to be. No more overlapping rows or missed spots that can reduce yields by 10% or more. I recently worked with a corn farm in Illinois that was struggling with variable soil pH across their fields; they programmed the HMI to adjust the amount of lime being applied based on real-time soil pH readings, and their corn yield went up by 15% in two years.
The real game-changer, though, is greenhouses and indoor vertical farms, where industrial controls are the entire foundation of operations. I’ve installed systems for a few vertical farms in New Jersey that grow leafy greens and herbs year-round, and every part of their environment is controlled by a network of sensors and controllers. Temperature, humidity, CO2 levels, lighting cycles—none of that is adjusted manually. The controllers sync with LED grow lights to adjust light intensity based on the crop’s growth stage, and they regulate CO2 levels to boost photosynthesis, which cuts grow time by almost 20%. What I love most about these operations is that they’re so consistent; a head of lettuce grown in a controlled environment will be the same size, taste, and quality every single time, which is huge for grocery chains that need uniform produce to stock their shelves.
Process controls, which are a big part of what my company does, also play a critical role in post-harvest handling and processing. Once crops are harvested, they need to be cleaned, sorted, and packaged quickly to stay fresh. Take a potato processing plant, for example. When potatoes come off the truck, they go through a series of conveyors, but before they even get to the cleaning stage, sensors check for size, shape, and defects—any potato that’s too small, has a blemish, or is rotten is automatically diverted. We install PLCs and motor control centers that run these sorting lines, and they can process up to 10,000 pounds of potatoes an hour without missing a single defect. That kind of speed and accuracy is impossible to achieve with manual labor, and it reduces food waste at the processing stage by a huge amount.
Another area I’ve been focusing on with clients is livestock farming, which is often overlooked when people talk about agricultural industrial controls. For pig and poultry farms, environmental controls are essential to keeping animals healthy and productive. Ventilation systems, temperature regulators, and even feeding systems are all automated with industrial controls. I worked with a chicken farm in Georgia a couple of years ago that was losing a lot of young chicks to temperature fluctuations; when we installed a system that adjusts the barn’s temperature within 0.5 degrees based on the chicks’ age and activity levels, their mortality rate dropped by 18%. Feeding systems that are controlled by PLCs also make sure each chicken gets the right amount of feed at the right time, reducing waste and cutting down on labor costs for the farm workers.
Sustainability is a buzzword in agriculture these days, and industrial controls are at the center of that too. Farmers are under more pressure than ever to reduce their environmental impact, and controls make that possible. Precision application of fertilizers and pesticides means less runoff into rivers and streams, which helps protect waterways. Automated irrigation cuts down on overuse of groundwater, which is a huge issue in places like California and the High Plains. Even on the energy side, we’ve installed control systems for farms that sync their equipment with solar panels and battery storage, so they use renewable energy when it’s available and draw from the grid only when they need to. A dairy farm in Wisconsin I work with now powers 40% of their milking equipment with their own solar array, all controlled by a PLC that manages when to use solar vs. grid power to keep costs low.
Of course, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Early on, a lot of farmers were skeptical of industrial controls—they saw it as expensive, complicated, and something that would replace the hands-on knowledge that generations of farmers have built up. I remember a wheat farmer in Kansas who refused to let us install anything on his farm in 2015; he said, “I’ve been farming this land for 40 years, and I know when it’s time to plant better than any machine.” But after a drought hit that same year, and he lost 20% of his crop because he couldn’t adjust his irrigation fast enough, he called me a few months later. We installed a basic sensor and PLC system on 20 acres of his land, and the next year, even with a mild drought, those acres yielded 25% more than his unmodified acres. Now he’s one of our biggest advocates, helping other local farmers understand how these systems work without overwhelming them.
That’s part of what I love about working in industrial controls for agriculture—we’re not just selling equipment; we’re building partnerships. A lot of our clients aren’t tech experts, so we spend time training their workers on how to use the HMIs, troubleshoot basic issues, and adjust the systems as their crops change. We also make sure the systems are flexible; a farm that grows corn one year might switch to soy the next, so we design controls that can be reprogrammed easily, not just one-size-fits-all. Last year, we worked with a vegetable farm in Arizona that was growing cotton for many years, but they switched to peppers after cotton prices dropped. We came in, adjusted the PLC programming and sensor settings, and they were up and running with their new crop in three weeks.
Looking ahead, I think the role of industrial controls in agriculture will only grow. We’re already seeing more integration with AI and machine learning, where controllers can predict issues before they happen—like a sensor detecting an early pest infestation and automatically adjusting pesticide application rates, or weather data predicting a frost and triggering the greenhouse heating system before the temperature drops. We’re also working on more rugged, low-cost sensors that can be deployed across even the smallest farms, so it’s not just big commercial operations that can benefit from this technology.
At the end of the day, agriculture is about feeding people, and that’s a responsibility that’s only getting bigger as the global population grows to 9 billion by 2050. Industrial controls help farmers do that more efficiently, with less waste, and in a way that’s better for the planet. I’ve seen firsthand how these systems can turn a struggling farm into a thriving business, how they can protect land and water, and how they can make the job of farming a little less stressful for the people who do it. If you’re a farmer or agricultural manager looking to upgrade your operations, whether you’re just starting with basic irrigation controls or ready to integrate full process control for your processing plant, I’d encourage you to reach out. The right industrial control system isn’t just an investment in equipment—it’s an investment in the future of your farm, and the food we all eat.
Instrument Transformer References:
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2022). Precision Agriculture for Sustainable Food Systems.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture. (2023). Industrial Control Systems in Modern Agricultural Production.
- International Society of Automation. (2021). Industrial Automation for Horticulture and Livestock Operations.
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