Session on Precision Agriculture

Session on Precision Agriculture

The ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi organized a Session on “Sensors and Sensing for Precision Agriculture” under the “Precision Agriculture” during the Vaishwik Bhartiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) Summit - 2020.

About Precision Agriculture

Precision agriculture (PA) is an approach to agricultural production that aims to reduce crop losses and improve yields as compared to traditional approaches such as intercropping, crop rotation, and agroforestry.

Precision agriculture and PA refers to any technology that assists farmers with the decision process through appropriate acquisition, processing and analysis of spatial-temporal data from the field.

Sustainable PA is this century’s most valuable innovation in farm management that is based on using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

It is based on sustainable agriculture and healthy food production and it consists of profitability and increasing production, economic efficiency and the reduction of side effects on the environment.

Benefits of Precision Agriculture

Precision agriculture has emerged as a solution to many global challenges, including reducing labour costs, soil erosion, water and fertilizer use and greenhouse gas emissions. Some of the major benefits of Precision Agriculture are-

• Increases agriculture productivity
• Prevents soil degradation
• Reduces chemical application in crop production
• Efficient use of water resources
• Disseminates modern farm practices to improve the quality, quantity and reduced cost of production
• Changes the socio-economic status of farmers

Challenges on Precision Agriculture

Today's challenges in precision agriculture include economic and educational factors. More specifically, agricultural producers are unable to make the transition because of the increased investment required to adopt precision farming technology. The challenges in precision agriculture include

Lack of qualified research and extension personnel: Because of a lack of qualified research and extension personnel in precision agriculture for crops, often technology is focused upon commodity production. New technologies for row crops such as corn can be easily transferred to soybeans because there are fewer management decisions that need to be translated at the field level. In precision agriculture for vegetable crops, there is a vast need for qualified people in the fields and new management decisions that need to be included when transferring new technologies into the field.

Unavailability of the necessary information required for application: The availability of meteorological and soil information in real-time to support the application of fertilizers requires a high level of accuracy for decision-making.

Absence of necessary funds: Farmers are facing challenges in their farming activities due to the low presence of necessary funds. They do not have enough income sources to help them cover the expenses required for the farm management and maintenance which maybe even more than what they can afford.