Precision Agriculture

Precision Agriculture

excerpt from D. Medrana (2007)

Concerns for increased agricultural production and sustainable environment in the developed world have led to the inception of Precision Agriculture, a holistic farm management approach that relies on spatial information to optimize profitability and productivity while minimizing the adverse environmental impacts.

Precision agriculture (PA) was first introduced in the United States during the 1980s as a response to environmental problems resulting from agricultural activities like the use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides (Liu et. al. 2003). Over the years, the developments in information and communications technology (ICT) such as satellite imagery and global positioning system (GPS) have led to the expansion of PA’s applications and to its further development into what it is today in the developed countries – an integration of new and emerging technologies (e.g. GPS, geographical information system, variable rate farm input applicators, remote sensing, and telecommunications) to identify and manage the variability (e.g., soil nutrient requirement, pesticide requirement, and yield potential) within a field to improve production, increase profits and minimize the environmental impacts.

Specifically, PA, through its associated technologies, enables farmers to vary input use and cultivation methods including application of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and water; variety selection; planting; tillage; and harvesting to match the varying soil and crop conditions across a field (Srinivasan 2002). This would normally result in input savings and higher productivity. Also, PA serves as a decision support tool by providing site-specific information like climatic condition, and the suitability of a crop or a cropping system in a given farm among others.

The two main PA benefits often cited in literature are very much relevant to the developing countries’ concerns. Such benefits are (i) the increase in agricultural production (from improved crop/farm yield) or reduction in input costs which address food security issues brought about by large and fast growing population; and (ii) the sustainability of the environment and natural resources as a result of systematic use and/or reduction of chemical inputs in agricultural production and sustainable management of soil and water resources in agriculture.

From a global perspective, PA has strong positive implications on the world food scenario. It is specifically a very promising tool for increasing agricultural and food production. Since increases in agricultural land area for food would not suffice the expected increase in world food requirement, the necessary increases in production should come from crop and/or farm yield improvements, which PA may effectively deliver. Considering that at least about 50 million people will be added to the world’s population every year up to 2020, precision agriculture would definitely play a very important role in increasing food production, especially in the developing world where majority of such population growth is expected to occur.

In terms of sustaining the environment, PA may prescribe good agricultural practices (GAP) through the precise recommendation of chemical inputs only at levels required. It can also prescribe reasonable farm practices, those that comply with existing environmental policies, so that farmers within a locality would be led towards practicing sustainable agricultural production.