Precision Agriculture: The Future of Farming
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Image: Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Precision agriculture is revolutionizing the farming industry by enabling a never-before-imagined level of efficiency in production and yields. Using sophisticated technology and software including GPS, autosteering and advanced analysis, precision farming can increase yields and improve productivity, while reducing pollution and water and fertilizer use.
Precision farming came into being in the 1970s, when developers started experimenting with new technological applications for agriculture, like laser-controlled graders and scrapers. In 1995, the U.S. military made their NAVSTAR GPS technology available for non-military use, and precision farming began to boom.
Initially, GPS could only provide accuracy within the tens of meters. Today, precision farmers can achieve accuracy up to two centimeters.
Early systems for farming focused on on-screen mapping. Used with light-bar visual guidance, operators could locate exact areas that required spraying, tilling or planting. Current precision technology allows producers to control a wide variety of machines and tools, many of which operate with little to no intervention from the user.
Besides sophisticated engineering and advanced software, the high level of accuracy available through current GPS systems is due to two major satellite constellations providing GPS readings: the U.S. GPS system, NAVSTAR, and the Russian GLONASS system. These systems feed into a larger system of multiple satellite constellations called GNSS – the Global Navigation Satellite System.
Through these major systems, GPS users access more than 40 satellites – with more in the works. Other major satellite constellations expected to come online soon include Europe’s Galileo system and China’s Compass system.
Today’s sophisticated precision agriculture systems use the data from GNSS technology in conjunction with multiple local implements, such as guidance systems, metering systems, sensing devices and weather stations. All of this streamlined intelligence provides farmers with a huge amount of control over their operations, from land preparation and seeding, to fertilizer application, watering and harvesting.
Best of all, today’s machinery essentially drives itself, reducing the need for skilled operators as well as the amount of manual labour required on the modern farm.
Precision agriculture tools creates enormous time-saving opportunities as well as cost-saving opportunities. Although some equipment may seem cost-prohibitive, especially to the established farmer who may be set in his or her ways, most farming operations find that they cannot survive without the benefits of precision agriculture.
