Precision Agriculture is an approach to farm management. It uses information technology (IT).
Information Technology confirms that crops and soil receive exactly. They need it for prime health and productivity. The purpose of Precision Agriculture is to ensure sustainability, Profitability, and security of the environment.
By using precision technology, a farmer can expand accuracy, reduce input costs, improve soil conditions. It also reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, it is based on data. Precision farming can increase yields. It also enhances the crop’s quality while protecting the environment. It is about operating variations in the field. It utilizes to grow more food using fewer resources and reduce production costs.
Presently Agricultural productivity may seem to have reached a stationary (maximum) point. It is due to the global availability of fertilizers and pesticides which are used to improve production. Still, misuse of these products and lack of awareness of the field parameters can reduce our productivity.
It endangers the environmental balance in the cultivation area.
Agriculture today is at a significant crossroads. Farmers are striving to produce more food on the same land area. They want to cultivate foods with limited resources. In aiming to fulfill global food demand and scarcity challenges, a significant boom has occurred. Then Farm technology has entirely improved. It has become Digitized.
In general, Agriculture has undergone a similar evolution. Technology has become a vital part of doing business for every farmer.
Agriculture faces significant challenges. There is ever-increasing pressure on profit margins. Farmers are also aiming to produce food in the most sustainable way possible.
Agriculture is becoming more scientific, with GPS, and data analytics all being added to the farming tools. Thousands of farmers all over are using the new equipment. They use it to make their farming more precise.
Tractors can map fields, drive themselves, and check their motion within inches. So it does not waste fertilizer, corn, or fuel. This technology includes remote sensing with data collection on variables like nutrient levels and soil steam.
In the 1990s, Precision agriculture was born with the beginning of GPS guidance for tractors. Pierre Robert is always considered the father of precision farming. Because of his effective promotion of the idea and organization of the first workshop.
Precision farming makes use of satellite technology. It allows real-time management of crops, fields, and animals. It helps to monitor agriculture. It also reduces the environmental effect of farming.
All elements of the environment – soil, weather, vegetation, water – vary from place to place. All of these factors determine crop growth and farming success. Farmers have always been aware of this. Yet, they lacked the tools to measure, map, and manage these variations precisely. Thus, precision farming can make a difference in food production. It is facing the challenge of a rising world population. So it can help farmers to achieve.
The purpose of precision agriculture is to improve agricultural yield and reduce potential environmental risks. The benefits are as follows:
- The application of sensing devices in fields will enable continuous monitoring of the chosen parameters. It will give real-time data. It ensures the updated status of the space.
- Provide useful information for management decisions.
- It saves time and costs. It reduces fertilizer and chemical application costs, reduces pollution through less use of chemicals.
- Provide better plantation records. That is necessary for sale and succession.
Over the past twenty years, precision agriculture technology has improved so quickly. It has become an information-intensive experiment. Growers, retailers, and others are seeking to obtain new systems. They also want to upgrade existing equipment. They also want to be fluent in the terminology. That is used in communications, hardware, software, and other areas. Those make informed decisions at the time of purchase. Also, acquaintance with key terminology is part of the training. Workers need to maximize the use of technology. The explanations are compiled below from various sources. It provides a quick reference to technical terms.
The vastest benefit of precision agriculture is efficiency and accuracy. It can apply chemicals and fertilizers only when and where they are needed.
Precision agronomics is another considerable term related to the combining of methodology with technology. At its beginning, it is about providing more accurate farming techniques for planting and growing crops.
Trying to decide which Precision Agriculture technologies are right for our farm can seem like an intimidating task. Still, the solutions were incorporated into our farm. It can be simple and should make sense for our operation. If anyone goes into PA with the right attitude, they can be successful and see a significant return on their investment.
Table of Contents
Four Tips that can help us Succeed with Precision Agriculture
Start with a goal
Whenever anyone invests in their operation, it should be a part of their overall business plan. Creative problem-solving is something that has been performed on the farm for centuries. But presently, the solution is often found within a piece of technology.
Understand the management and maintenance required
Useful technology should work for you. If anyone wants to spend the money on new seeding, spraying, and harvesting monitors, they need to calibrate the machines regularly. They also need to organize the data, ensure its accuracy. Then act on what the data tells them.
Have a support network
Preparing the exact Precision Agricultural decisions for your farm is not easy. Having strong support from a Trimble Vantage Reseller can be a great help. Especially when you make the initial investment, as you evaluate your data each season, and when you expand the technologies used in your operation.
Get connected
The web is an exceedingly powerful tool. It can be a useful tool to find other farmers who are making similar decisions on their farms. Web platforms like YouTube and Twitter can vastly enlarge your support network. It is an outstanding idea to search for reviews and testimonials. Before you invest in a unique piece of technology, it helps you to get an idea. Farmers around the world post Online surveys. That offers the pros and cons of various equipment and products.
The quality of citizen science data produced by farmers. They are focusing on their accuracy. Accuracy contains two components. They are Reliability and Validity. The reliability of a method is its capacity to produce repeated. Validity suggests the closeness of a result. It also refers to the mean of a large group of outcomes to the actual value or accepted standard. The mixed information about reliability and validity allows discussing the accuracy of a technique.
Precision Agriculture is generally defined as information.
It is Technology-based farm management. This system is used to identify, analyze, and manage spatial and temporal variability. It is within fields for optimum productivity and profitability, sustainability, and Security of the land resource by minimizing the production costs. Improving the environmental consciousness of the general public is necessitating us to modify agricultural management practices. It is for sustainable conservation of natural resources such as water, air, and soil quality while staying economically profitable. The use of inputs Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are based on the right quantity. It is also based at the right time and in the right place. This type of management is generally known as Site-Specific Management. The productivity gain in the global food supply has increasingly depended on the expansion of irrigation.
Market-based global competition in an Agricultural product is challenging the economic viability of traditional agricultural systems. It requires the development of modern and dynamic production systems.
Precision farming offers the potential to automate. It also simplifies the collection and analysis of information. It permits management decisions to be made and quickly implemented in small areas within larger fields.
TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT for Precision Agriculture
- Global positioning system (GPS)
- Geographic Information System
- Sensor Technology
- Grid soil sampling and variable-rate fertilizer application
- Crop Management
- Soil and plant sensors
- Global Positioning System
- Yield Monitoring
- Precision Farming on arable land
- On-line resources for precision agriculture
Precision Agriculture is still only a concept in many developing countries. Strategic support from the public and private sectors is essential to promote their Successful adoption. However, Comprise three cases containing exploration, analysis. Precision agriculture can deal with both economic and environmental issues. That surrounds production agriculture today. Concerns remain about cost-effectiveness and the most effective ways to use the technological tools we now have. But the idea of doing the right thing in the right place at the right time has a strong intuitive appeal. In light of today’s urgent need, there should be an all-out effort. So, we can use new technological inputs.
Finally, the achievement of precision agriculture depends on something. It mainly relies on how well and how quickly, the knowledge needed to guide the new technologies is arranged. It provides a modern solution using a systems approach for today’s agricultural issues. Exceptionally, as the need to balance productivity with environmental concerns. It is based on advanced information technology. It includes describing and modeling the variation of soils and plant species. It attempts at increased economic returns. The environmental impact of agriculture as well as reduce the energy input.
