The one thing about farming that stays the same is that it’s always different.

Agriculture in and around Butler County is no exception, and the changes present a number of challenges and opportunities.

For companies like Lamb & Webster in Grove City, new technology comes with new opportunities to provide increasingly efficient and productive equipment.

Lamb & Webster mostly sells bigger, higher-horsepower vehicles.

“If we can save a farmer a dollar an acre, that can translate to thousands of dollars,” said Ron Bradley, a salesman at Lamb & Webster. “They just released autonomous tractors, though we won’t see it for awhile around here.”

It is more likely that farms out West will learn to utilize such advances first, he said.

For farmers looking to keep up with the state-of-the-art technology, John Winger, also a salesman with Lamb & Webster, said that “it’s all about data.”

Modern equipment, including computer programs and drones, can work in tandem to paint a more complete statistical picture of what is going on at any point on a farm.

This is also key for deciding how, where and when to automate.

Autonomous equipment will require that farmers know where to send it and what to have it do.

Farmers will also want to be confident that an autonomous tractor knows what to do when it encounters an unexpected obstacle or a hole.

All of these new technologies will only work if they work together, Bradley said.

When they do, projects that once took dozens of employees may be doable with just one, and fields of workers can be replaced by high tech devices and a man using a computer in the comfort of his home.

“Everything’s becoming more advanced for efficiency purposes,” Winger said.

Recent years have brought a host of challenges for smaller agricultural companies: demand has been falling, driving down prices and devaluing goods and services.

One of the main causes seems to be the loss of many local customers.

“We’re losing more and more farms,” said Gary Kissinger, manager of Smardt Equipment in Prospect.

Many of these farms are bought by developers or bigger farms, looking to expand their acreage and increase production.

These bigger farms typically don’t buy from local businesses, Kissinger said.

“Business is shifting to contractors and people with old machines that need new ones,” Kissinger said.

One of the main changes he sees his business making is looking to find new customers in other industries to replace the ones that left.

Much of the equipment that once went to farmers now goes to construction sites or agricultural hobbyists.

Smardt sells tractors and agricultural vehicles with up to 140 horsepower, with some small adjustments and attachments to fit the needs of new customers.

“We’ve shifted a bit, focusing more on compact tractors,” Kissinger said.

Smardt, though, has maintained a full line of agricultural equipment.

“(New Holland’s) theme for the last year is about making machines that will last for years,” Kissinger said.

“We’ve been selling tractors for seven to eight years. I don’t see it changing much,” he said.

Not everyone sells agricultural products that are easily marketed to nonfarmers.

Evelyn Oesterling, owner of Oesterling Lawn and Garden, said her business is looking to find customers to replace the farmers who have sold off their operations.

Oesterling sells mostly grain, feed and fertilizer, she said, and without farms to sell to, it is unknown where the business will find the customers it needs.

“Our sales are down tremendously,” she said. “We employ 15 people, and to keep jobs, we need cash flow.”

This drop in demand is one of the main things driving prices down and devaluing the products on the shelves.

According to the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board, a strong dollar and high production have contributed to the drop in prices.

On top of all this, the government continues to pass restrictions on farmers and businesses, he said.

These include regulations on the types and quantities of medication farmers can give their animals.

The regulations prevent the customers that remain from buying in the same quantities and adds to the burden at Oesterling Lawn and Garden.

Oesterling said that there really isn’t a lot of innovating that a store like hers can do when it comes to feed and fertilizer. A store can try to go more organic, but the demand is often lacking and the cost of proving that a product is organic is often too great to pass on to consumers.

“We do some,” she said, “but not a lot.”

Despite these changes, Oesterling said the store still has some reliable customers.

“We always got the backyard chicken farmers and things like that,” she said.