How precision farming can help the agriculture sector become more sustainable

As we have written in previous blog posts, agriculture is a significant driver of agriculture accounting for around 24% of global greenhouse gas emission, while it is also one of the sectors most affected by it. 

Resulting from this, it is key to make better use of land through increased resource efficiency. Technology can help in this regard by enabling precision agriculture practices. In the following we will take a brief look at what defines precision agriculture and then proceed to evaluate its climate change mitigation potential. 

What is precision agriculture?

The International Society of Precision Agriculture defines precision agriculture as a management strategy that (a) gathers, processes, and analyzes temporal, spatial and individual data and (b) 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. 

Put differently, the aim of precision agriculture is to increase yield with lower resource input while minimizing the impact on the environment. According to the literature, three main categories of precision agriculture practices can be distinguished. 

Guidance systems. This category includes IoT applications guiding all types of tractors and other agricultural machinery in a field, including controlled traffic farming, machine guidance and driver assistance. 

Recording technologies. Under this category fall devices and sensors installed on the ground or drones in the air gathering spatial data. Hereby the focus lies on soil mapping, soil moisture mapping, canopy mapping, and yield mapping. 

Reacting technologies. Finally, reacting technologies includes IoT applications enabling the variation of agricultural inputs in the field such as variable rate irrigation and weeding, and variable rate application of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. 

Finally, it must be noted that all these technologies depend on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) such as GPS data. 

Impact on sustainability of the agricultural sector

According to the World Economic Forum, global crop yield could increase by 10% to 15% while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 10% and water usage by 20% by 2030, given that around 15% to 25% of farmers adopt precision agriculture practices. 

These numbers are particularly promising for water usage, as agriculture is currently responsible for around 70% of yearly global freshwater withdrawals. Insofar it is positive that the European Commission also intends to include precision agriculture practices in the forthcoming revision of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). 

Nevertheless, as it stands precision agriculture cannot be viewed as a silver bullet for climate change mitigation in the sector. More so it should be viewed as a decision-making support tool in the process of regenerating our soils to ensure long term food security for all.