The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers gives Farm Industry News an exclusive, in-depth look at five of its 50 AE50 award winners that are changing how we farm. 

Each year a gamut of new farm products make their way to the market, each trying to find its own niche of making the job of farming easier, more efficient, more profitable or just plain-old more exciting.

But of those products, probably only a handful improve farming practices enough to make them truly “game changing.” Those are the products that we as editors try to feature in our pages and honor each year in contests like the FinOvation Awards. They also are the ones that get the attention of professional associations like the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, or ASABE, whose members are in the business of designing these products.

ASABE pays homage to 50 of these products as parts of its annual AE50 Awards competition. Winners are announced at the Agricultural Equipment Technology Conference in Louisville, KY, in February, held concurrently with the Farm Machinery Show so both farmers and engineers can see the gamut of new products and machinery available.

The AE50 Awards covers all facets of farming, whether it be raising animals, harvesting field crops or growing berries. And what’s interesting is that all of them have some relevance to your business of crop farming, whether it be directly or indirectly, as technologies morph into different applications.

Prior to this year’s awards ceremony, current ASABE president Lalit Verma and ‎ASABE’s executive director Darrin Drolinger filled us in on five of the 50 products that they consider to be truly game-changing.

“These are some of the products I would call “groundbreaking,” Verma says. “And what’s common to all of them is that they employ advancements in sensors and wireless technology to make farming “site-specific” or, in the case of livestock, “animal-specific.”  

Here’s a look at these five brand new products. You can see the entire AE50 list of award winners by visiting the association website at www.asabe.org.