Precision agriculture is a management strategy that gathers, processes and analyzes temporal, spatial and individual plant and animal data and combines it with other information to support management decisions according to estimated variability for improved resource use efficiency, productivity, quality, profitability and sustainability of agricultural production. It is used in both crop and livestock production.
A central component of implementing this strategy is the satellite monitoring of agricultural machinery, which forms the basis for modern farm fleet management. This is achieved through the use of fleet telematics systems, where vehicles are equipped with a GPS tracking unit and an onboard controller that transmits telemetry data—such as location, speed, engine hours, and fuel consumption—to a central server for analysis. This stream of real-time data allows for the automation of agricultural operations and provides critical insights for improving diagnosis and decision-making. Beyond machinery, precision agriculture also analyzes the spatial variability within fields, such as how terrain attributes (geomorphology) and soil properties affect crop growth and water distribution (hydrology).[Howard, J.A., Mitchell, C.W., 1985. Phytogeomorphology. Wiley.] The goal of precision agriculture research is to define a decision support system for whole farm management with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources.McBratney, A., Whelan, B., Ancev, T., 2005. Future Directions of Precision Agriculture. Precision Agriculture, 6, 7-23.Whelan, B.M., McBratney, a.B., 2003. Definition and Interpretation of potential management zones in Australia, In: Proceedings of the 11th Australian Agronomy Conference, Geelong, Victoria, 2–6 Feb. 2003.
The practice of precision agriculture has been enabled by the advent of GPS and GNSS. The farmer's and/or researcher's ability to locate their precise position in a field allows for the creation of maps of the spatial variability of as many variables as can be measured (e.g. crop yield, terrain features/topography, organic matter content, moisture levels, nitrogen levels, pH, EC, Mg, K, and others). Similar data is collected by sensor arrays mounted on GPS-equipped combine harvesters. These arrays consist of real-time sensors that measure everything from chlorophyll levels to plant water status, along with multispectral imagery.Reyns, P., Missotten, B., Ramon, H. et al. Precision Agriculture (2002) 3: 169. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013823603735 This data is used in conjunction with satellite imagery by variable rate technology (VRT) including seeders, sprayers, etc. to optimally distribute resources. However, recent technological advances have enabled the use of real-time sensors directly in soil, which can wirelessly transmit data without the need of human presence.M. Sophocleous et al., "A Stand-Alone, In Situ, Soil Quality Sensing System for Precision Agriculture," in IEEE Transactions on AgriFood Electronics, doi: 10.1109/TAFE.2024.3351953.M. Sophocleous and J. Georgiou, “Precision agriculture: Challenges in sensors and electronics for real-time soil and plant monitoring,” 2017 IEEE Biomed. Circuits Syst. Conf., pp. 1–4, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1109/BIOCAS.2017.8325180
Precision agriculture can benefit from unmanned aerial vehicles, that are relatively inexpensive and can be operated by novice pilots. These agricultural drones can be equipped with multispectral or RGB cameras to capture many images of a field that can be stitched together using photogrammetric methods to create orthophotos. These multispectral images contain multiple values per pixel in addition to the traditional red, green blue values such as near infrared and red-edge spectrum values used to process and analyze vegetative indexes such as NDVI maps. These drones are capable of capturing imagery and providing additional geographical references such as elevation, which allows software to perform map algebra functions to build precise topography maps. These topographic maps can be used to correlate crop health with topography, the results of which can be used to optimize crop inputs such as water, fertilizer or chemicals such as herbicides and growth regulators through variable rate applications.
History
Precision agriculture is a key component of the third wave of modern agricultural revolutions. The first agricultural revolution was the increase of mechanized agriculture, from 1900 to 1930. Each farmer produced enough food to feed about 26 people during this time. The 1960s prompted the Green Revolution with new methods of genetic modification, which led to each farmer feeding about 156 people. It is expected that by 2050, the global population will reach about 9.6 billion, and food production must effectively double from current levels in order to feed every mouth. With new technological advancements in the agricultural revolution of precision farming, each farmer will be able to feed 265 people on the same acreage.
Overview The first wave of the precision agricultural revolution came in the forms of satellite and aerial imagery, weather prediction, variable rate fertilizer application, and crop health indicators.[Haneklaus, Silvia/Lilienthal, Holger/Schnug, Ewald (2016): 25 years Precision Agriculture in Germany – a retrospective. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Precision Agriculture : 31 July – 3 August 2016, St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Online unter: https://www.openagrar.de/receive/openagrar_mods_00039296] The second wave aggregates the machine data for even more precise planting, topographical mapping, and soil data.
Precision agriculture aims to optimize field-level management with regard to: crop science: by matching farming practices more closely to crop needs (e.g. fertilizer inputs); environmental protection: by reducing environmental risks and footprint of farming (e.g. limiting leaching of nitrogen); economics: by boosting competitiveness through more efficient practices (e.g. improved management of fertilizer usage and other inputs). Precision agriculture also provides farmers with a wealth of information to: build up a record of their farm improve decision-making foster greater traceability enhance marketing of farm products improve lease arrangements and relationships with landlords enhance the inherent quality of farm products (e.g. protein level in bread-flour wheat)
Prescriptive planting Prescriptive planting is a type of farming system that delivers data-driven planting advice that can determine variable planting rates to accommodate varying conditions across a single field, in order to maximize yield. It has been described as "Big Data on the farm." Monsanto, DuPont and others are launching this technology in the US.
Principles Precision agriculture uses many tools, but some of the basics include tractors, combines, sprayers, planters, and diggers, which are all considered auto-guidance systems. The small devices on the equipment that use GIS (geographic information system) are what makes precision agriculture what it is; the GIS system can be thought of as the “brain”. To be able to use precision agriculture, the equipment needs to be wired with the right technology and data systems. More tools include Variable rate technology (VRT), Global positioning system, Geographical information system, Grid sampling, and remote sensors.
Geolocating Geolocating a field enables the farmer to overlay information gathered from the analysis of soils and residual nitrogen, and information on previous crops and soil resistivity. Geolocation is done in two ways The field is delineated using an in-vehicle GPS device as the farmer drives a tractor around the field. The field is delineated on a basemap derived from aerial or satellite imagery. The base images must have the right level of resolution and geometric quality to ensure that geolocation is sufficiently accurate.
Variables Intra and inter-field variability may result from a number of factors. These include climatic conditions (hail, drought, rain, etc.), soils (texture, depth, nitrogen levels), cropping practices (no-till farming), weeds, and disease. Permanent indicators—chiefly soil indicators—provide farmers with information about the main environmental constants. Point indicators allow them to track a crop's status, i.e., to see whether diseases are developing, if the crop is suffering from water stress, nitrogen stress, or lodging, whether it has been damaged by ice, and so on. This information may come from weather stations and other sensors (soil electrical resistivity, detection with the naked eye, satellite imagery, etc.). Soil resistivity measurements combined with soil analysis make it possible to measure moisture content. Soil resistivity is also a relatively simple and cheap measurement.
Strategies
Using soil maps, farmers can pursue two strategies to adjust field inputs: Predictive approach: based on analysis of static indicators (soil, resistivity, field history, etc.) during the crop cycle. Control approach: information from static indicators is regularly updated during the crop cycle by: sampling: weighing biomass, measuring leaf chlorophyll content, weighing fruit, etc. remote sensing: measuring parameters like temperature (air/soil), humidity (air/soil/leaf), wind or stem diameter is possible thanks to Wireless Sensor Networks and Internet of things (IoT) proxy-detection: in-vehicle sensors measure leaf status; this requires the farmer to drive around the entire field. aerial or satellite remote sensing: multispectral imagery is acquired and processed to derive maps of crop biophysical parameters, including indicators of disease. Airborne instruments are able to measure the amount of plant cover and to distinguish between crops and weeds. Decisions may be based on decision-support models (crop simulation models and recommendation models) based on big data, but in the final analysis it is up to the farmer to decide in terms of business value and impacts on the environment- a role being taken over by artificial intelligence (AI) systems based on machine learning and artificial neural networks.
It is important to realize why PA technology is or is not adopted, "for PA technology adoption to occur the farmer has to perceive the technology as useful and easy to use. It might be insufficient to have positive outside data on the economic benefits of PA technology as perceptions of farmers have to reflect these economic considerations."
Implementing practices New information and communication technologies make field-level crop management more operational and easier to achieve for farmers. Application of crop management decisions calls for agricultural equipment that supports variable-rate technology (VRT), for example varying seed density along with the variable-rate application (VRA) of nitrogen and phytosanitary products.
Precision agriculture uses technology on agricultural equipment (e.g. tractors, sprayers, harvesters, etc.): positioning system (e.g. GPS trackers that use satellite signals to precisely determine a position on the globe); geographic information systems (GIS), i.e., software that makes sense of all the available data; variable-rate farming equipment (seeder, spreader).
Usage around the world