Many at times, farmers in their quest to becoming top farmers strive to minimize cost while increasing their productivity. This is the big reason why every astute farmer MUST embrace the concept of Precision Agriculture.
I will try and put this in the simplest way possible; Precision agriculture is the approach to farming where crop and soil receives exact amount of inputs where it is needed such that inputs are minimized while the productivity or yield is maximized. This is achieved through use of information technology (IT) Internet of Things (IoT), big data science among other state of the art technological advancements.
The advancements in global positioning systems (GPS) has greatly revolutionized precision agriculture. Gps is actually considered as the backbone to precision agriculture. From gps, systems such as Auto guidance and auto steering has been developed, advanced and greatly used in farm machinery.
Modern farm machinery are fitted with various kinds of devices that enables the farmer to seamlessly perform precision farming. Such devices includes displays fitted within the cabin, steering units used in steering the farm machinery automatically, antennas used in receiving guidance signals (gps, gnss, rtk etc) used in guidance and steering, control modules among others.
Farm implements have also been advanced with regards to fitting into precision agriculture. Farm implements such as sprayers, planters, spreaders, etc comes with advanced technological capabilities that ensures precise and efficient use of inputs.
Features such as Variable Rate Control, Section Control, crop health monitoring, implement auto height among others are fitted on the implements.
There are several players in the field of precision agriculture each striving to be as accurate, precise and efficient as possible. Although most of these technologies are developed and distribed by OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), there are several other indepent players who solely develop and distribute the technologies to the clients directly.
Such independent developers includes manufacturers such as trimble and Fjdynamics . They develop the technology in a way that can be retrofited into any farm equipment and distribute the technologies to the farmers.
Research shows that, precision agriculture improves productivity by upto 45% as compared to conventional farming. With precision agriculture, concepts such as controlled traffic (minimizing compaction in the farm by limiting the area used by machinery movement), zero tillage and minimum tillage.
"The only sustainable way of practising agriculture in the 21st century is through practising precision agriculture", Jefferson.
By Eng. Alfred
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