Finding the Perfect Farming Method Through “Big Data”

Leonard Jackai wants to build his own name. With two parents on faculty at A&T, and an eye for business, Jackai wants to build on his family’s legacy, but branch off into his own pursuits.

“I like business,” said Jackai. “I like agribusiness. And I like interacting with people. Honestly, just talking, networking, and building relationships that’ll last. If you talk to five people, they may know 20 people. Building those interactions, traveling and seeing where it takes you. It’s always appealed to me.”

The Greensboro native seemed destined for N.C. A&T, despite his misgivings about following his family: his mother and father, Beatrice Dingha, Ph.D. and Louis Jackai, Ph.D., are both research professors in the college’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design.

“I initially didn’t want to come to A&T because my parents were faculty,” said Jackai, “but they spoke with me and talked me into giving it a chance. My advisors and peers convinced me, as well.”

Jackai enrolled in 2019 as an agribusiness major on the advice of department chair Kenrett Jefferson-Moore, Ph.D., who saw it as a gateway for Jackai’s career prospects.

“I want to own a Fortune 500 company,” Jackai said. “Dr. Moore told me that not only would agribusiness help me in my future career, but it would help me become successful in school right now.”

During junior year in 2021, Jackai was introduced to the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program, but also a helpful mentor in associate professor John Ng’ombe, Ph.D.

“Dr. Ng’ombe had just came into the department a year before I entered the program,” said Jackai. “He guided me into the research that would eventually be doing. I was definitely nervous about entering the program, but he and I built a chemistry through working together.”

“The first time we met, I saw one thing that was with him: he had the drive to learn,” said Ng’ombe. “He has always been willing to learn more and build on what he knows. This is very important.”

For his Undergraduate Research Scholar project, Jackai joined Ng’ombe in looking at “big data” to see which farming methods are the most profitable, attainable, and desirable for small-scale operations.

“Big Data” refers to the use of large information sets and the digital tools for collecting, aggregating, and analyzing them. Those assets, including GPS, unmanned aerial vehicles, satellites and even commonplace tools, like email and texting, can provide farmers with data on details such as rainfall patterns, water cycles, fertilizer requirements and potential crop yield.

“Farmers can benefit from knowing how to use big data,” said Jackai. “They can be hard to persuade, though, even though it can help them. Once we break through that ice, and they start to see how it can make farming easier, they’ll see how the revenue that they could be making if they follow data trends will be larger than what they are currently making.”

Jackai looked at literature to study ways that agricultural policy would likely evolve with new data and analytical techniques. Data from food scanners, for example, has been consistently used to study the impacts of regulations on purchases, and could be used to aid farmers’ understanding of crop sales and prices.

“This data would enable farmers to make smart decisions, such as what crops to plant for better profitability and when to harvest,” said Jackai. “Data-service providers strive to entice a critical mass of farmers to submit farm data so that the repository is filled. This is partially because the value of the farm data community will eventually depend on the number of farms and acres in the system- that is, the size of the network.”

According to Jackai’s study, predictive analytics – using data to predict outcomes – are also important.

“For example, we can predict consumers’ buying habits based on what they buy, when they buy, and even what they are writing about the product that they bought on social media,” said Jackai.

Jackai graduated in May 2023 with a major in agribusiness and minor in psychology. Now a master’s degree student, he looks back on his undergraduate years as a time of growth.

“I want to make my own path and not necessarily follow behind my parents – not that they haven’t led me in a great way, but I want to make a name for myself: ‘Who is Leonard Jackai?’ ” he said.

“When he comes for graduate education, I will be there for him,” said Ng’ombe. “I will help him build on what we started here, so he can become the best researcher he is bound to be.”