A farmer just won the lottery—what do they buy first? In February, the Farm Journal Pulse Poll asked that question specifically about technology purchases.

The top choice was variable-rate application technology with 31% of the responses (out of a total of 577 farmers)
The second choice was telematics with 28%.

Autosteering was third with 17%, which is interesting as a recent survey by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers calculates that more than 60% of row crop farmers are already using the technology.

While drones, smart phone apps, handheld technologies, and more get a lot of buzz, farmers may see less ROI in those as 16% say that’s their first-choice of where to invest the hypothetical windfall.

And it seems farmers are still getting their arms around the ROI of data management as well with only 8% saying software and data management is where they’d invest.