The First Generation - Kyle

70 years earlier

Kyle is jerked out of daydreaming and turns toward a noise in the kitchen. The early morning quiet is interrupted by the gurgle of the coffee pot as it finishes it’s cycle. He scratches his patchy beard, now flecked with gray. The hallway is dark except for the light seeping in from the under the kitchen door. The rug over the hard wood is old, familiar. Slippered footsteps quietly enter the kitchen.

It is early. Kyle has always been an early riser. He fills his first coffee of the day into his mug. Black coffee. Simple. He is in his mid-fourties, tall with a muscular build that has come to carry bit more weight that it did earlier in life. In pajama pants and an old college hooded sweatshirt he stretches his lower back, reaches for his toes, settling for just below his kneecaps.

He grabs his coffee mug. Blows on it softly. The steam twists against his breath. He inhales deeply the aroma of the coffee.

His exhale comes as a sigh.

The kitchen window above the sink faces east. The sun is now halfway above the horizon, bathing the kitchen counter in lights. Kyle squints as he walks past. He would not consider himself a morning person, but he finds himself rising with the sun.

His father was an early riser as well. A common trait for farmers. His father died ten years ago leaving him the farm and all of its debts. This farm and this farmhouse have been in his family for 4 generations. Kyle isn’t a passionate farmer – more of a reluctant farmer. He and his brothers all left for college and started their own careers. After getting his Computer Science degree from UI Kyle moved into the city to work for a major app developer. His life outside of the farm was short-lived. When Kyle was laid-off he came back home. Dad got sick and he has stayed ever since. This was always his lot in life. The farm - this endless loop of taking a loan, planting seed, growing, selling, and paying down debt is the life he has grown into.

He wanted to get out of this life. Equipment is breaking down and need fixing. Growing up, Kyle was always behind on one task or another. He can still hear his father’s endless grumbling about his lack of dedication. The list of things that needed doing here could never actually be accomplished – only managed.

In recent years, automation and new crop protectants have been driving yields up. Food production automation is a major platform for the current political administration. Food Security has become a matter of national interest. New applications of Artificial Intelligence are being funded by major agriculture research institutions. Kyle is optimist that the entire industry is about to be seeing growth. It is nice to see more attention being paid to an underappreciated profession.

There are still half a dozen family farms holdouts in the area similar to Kyle’s, but none of which are a tenth the size of Liautaud’s holdings. There are less independent family farms in the area each year. Several of his neighbors have sold to Liautaud. Kyle grew up with these families. His high school has less than 800 students. Everyone knows everyone’s business around here.

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Nearby farms have been generally reluctant to change their practices, buy Kyle is an early adopter. Kyle can tell his father’s old friends don’t think he is capable of running the farm. They turn their nose at the new tech, expecting there to be catch, but this harvest is shaping up to be the highest yield on record. This is only the second season of using the GatesAg1 AI suite of products. Kyle can’t wait to prove his worth.

Each year it becomes more difficult to compete on price with the major Ag Corps. However, Kyle entered the program and was able to have his father’s combine retrofitted with GA1 components at no upfront cost. The GA1 system was installed and the controls linked into the farm’s cloud servers. GA1 uses a system of drones and environmental sensors that maintain constant monitoring of the property, manage irrigation controls, and carry on-board crop-protectant doses adjusted in real time. Growing up, operating a major soybean farm like this would take the whole family and a couple hired hands to manage. Now Kyle is alone.

Kyle never really had his father “Feel” for decision making on the farm. He is happy to use technology to bridge the gap created by his lack of experience and intuition. His father was a stubborn man. Kyle always felt his stubbornness was holding back the farm. Now, decisions are made with data and logic instead of gut feelings and tradition.

Kyle sits down at his control hub, just off of the kitchen, in what used to be the family room. In the reflection of the black screen, he sees a tired face, older than he thinks of himself, sitting in front of a wooden bookshelf. Over his shoulder are his favorite books and a couple of his old football trophies. The eye level shelf holds the authors like Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley. Sometime Kyle feels like he is already living in the future.

The red standy-by light turns to green and the image is gone. He logs in to his farm dashboard. Three screens blink to life.

“Daily Summary Report Sep.15, 2029 – Ready for review *CheckMark*”.

At first, it was difficult to understand the daily summaries he sees on the screens. What only a few months ago was a complicated mess of tables and graphs now seems so simple. Clean.

All normal readouts. One sensor array in the northeast field is offline and will need to be manually reset. That’s ok, Kyle thinks. He could use some fresh air.

“It’s gonna be a good yield”. Kyle says to himself.

He sips his coffee and leans back into his chair. Harvest will begin in a few weeks. The current assessment reads 22 days until extraction. In the green zone of the original projections.

“Yeah, good yield…”

The house is still, quiet.

Kyle’s wife never was interested in farm life. She left months ago for her parents' house in Chicago. Their daughter went with her. His thoughts drift to his daughter. He knows she won’t be awake for hours, but he misses them both. He vocalizes a message to them saying good morning. He sets his phone down.

The silence is loud. He thinks about the future – his daughters future. Parent always want a better life for their kids. She will grow up with luxuries and technology he has only considered existing in the science fiction novels. Mainstream artificial intelligence is new for him and strange, but in her world it will be normal.

Will she want to take over the farm? Will she become a doctor? An Astronaut?

His brain clicks back over to reality.

Once harvest starts he will have more time and head out to see them. He sips his coffee and puts his feet up on the desk.

The last couple years have been a very anxious time for Kyle. His blood pressure is high and his doctor has added daily anxiety medication. Most of Kyle’s anxiety centers around paying down his debts. He is anxious to close this season. He is by no means a clever businessman, but any business owner knows to keep their debts low and yields high. GatesAg1 offered significantly better rates than the bank and borrowing directly from GatesAg1 reduced the financing cost significantly. If AI can improve yields just a bit more, this place could be profitable again.

Another year like last year and Kyle didn’t know what would happen…