What is Precision Farming?

From the official site of the European Union:

“Precision Farming (PF) is a management approach that focuses on near real-time observation, measurement, and responses to variability in crops, fields and animals. It can help increase crop yields and animal performance, reduce costs, including labour costs, and optimise process inputs. All of these can help increase profitability. At the same time, precision farming can increase work safety and reduce the environmental impacts of agriculture and farming practices, thus contributing to the sustainability of agricultural production.”

Feeding more and more people every year is a great challenge for the agri-food industry. As the land, which is one of the most important factors of agricultural production, is limited, achieving a more efficient production is essential.

One idea could be that using the same amount of land it would be possible to feed a significantly higher population. Precision Farming could be the answer.

PF gathers, processes and analyzes temporal, spatial and individual 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 crucial the importance of human resources, although this is based on the continuous interactions of farmers (users) and different Information Technology tools (machine).

The biometric parameters can be studied using the smartphone application. In Italy, some pilot studies on viticulture and fruits production (orange, almond, olive) show up to 60% of saving water and phytosanitary drugs.

Furthermore, the leaf wall area, that can be evaluated by PF is becoming an indicator for phytosanitary drugs administration.

However, the implementation of PF could not be so easy, especially in the small-scale. There is a consensus in the literature that larger farms are more likely to adopt different precision farming methods and tools compared to smaller farms.

There are many differences among countries, especially in the developing countries the adoption of a PF is limited, due to difficulties in accessing technology, capacity problems, and financial difficulties. In addition, the term “large” or “small” in relation to precision farming may differ from country to country.

It is primary to achieve a stable and supporting environment to achieve higher PF adoption. Technology-related difficulties can be bridged by education, the use of standards, or simple and user-friendly technology. Professional vendors, advisors, or agricultural contractor services can provide professional support to farmers.

[1] How can precision farming work on a small scale? A systematic literature review; Mizik T.; Precision Agriculture (2023) 24:384–406.