Approximately 1.38 million of the total population, more than 70% of the rural families in India, still depend primarily on agriculture and allied sectors of agriculture for their livelihood. The lack of sufficient available fresh water resources to meet water demand for agriculture in different parts of India and the shrinking of land are the serious cause of concern, hence Govt focus on promoting farmer-friendly location-specific production systems to achieve vertical growth in agriculture with efficient utilization of natural resources through location-specific high tech interventions.
These kinds of interventions include nutrient-based fertilizer management, micro-propagation, high-density planting, drip irrigation, fertigation, greenhouse, etc. to help the farmers manage and organize their lands and turn maximum productivity and profit from minimum resources.
Let’s understand what the term Precision Agriculture means!
Precision Agriculture or satellite Agriculture is a concept of utilizing geographical information to determine the variability in fields to improve crop quality and production. Utilizing simulative Remote Sensing, Geographical Informative System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) systems, to visualize the fields more closely and understand the soil conditions.
Three Main Elements of Successful Precision Agriculture:
Precision Farming has mainly relied upon three key elements: technology, information, and decision support.
A. Information:
- A computer and a low latency internet connection such as 5G are the most critical components for information processing and gathering.
- Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a valuable resource to collect and analyze the data for a better understanding of soil types, fertility requirements, crop characteristics, weather predictions, throughout the harvesting process approach, pest control, weed, and other important factors.
B. Technology
- Smart farmers must learn to assess and adopt new technologies to their farming operations. like the GIS software system for record-keeping, organizing, and analyzing the data. Another technology that the farmers can use is Global Positioning System (GPS). This software allows farmers and agricultural consultants to locate specific field positions and navigation in any weather condition across the world.
- GPS-based applications are being used in field mapping, farm planning, tractor guidance, spatial variables, and yield mapping.
- The interesting part is that GPS allows farmers to determine the low weather conditions such as rain, dust, fog, and darkness and work effectively and assess the impact of farm management decisions, and control or adjust operation inputs.
C. Decision Support Management
- Remote sensing, GIS, and GPS methods are used to identify the variations in the agriculture field.
- A Decision Support System (DSS) is used for evolving the different field zones that will optimize the resource input and highlight the products in different structures.
- This will allow farmers to make an informed decision and proceed with the appropriate management strategy for quality and production improvement and maximizing outputs.
The Main Goals and Objectives of Precision Agriculture:
Precision Farming or Precision agriculture is a comprehensive approach to farm management using PF tools with a traditional farming approach to
- Early identification of field variations and crop health.
- Use the collected data precisely to remedy the issues.
- Maintain sustainability and improved crop quality.
- Effective and efficient pest control management.
- Energy, water and soil conservation, and usages.
- Maximize returns through the season and during harvest time.
How does it work?
Every field contains different variations of soil and consumption of water resources. Precision Farming cannot be appropriate for every type of cultivation field.
- Use the PF tools and gather and review the existing information on soil types, pH level, nutrient content, pest management strategies, and cropping practice records.
- Gather the yield data by using a yield monitor and gather the yield data. Though a yield monitor may get too expensive, you can get a rough yield estimation by spot-checking various field parts with a weigh wagon.
- Collect soil samples to check the soil nutrients level and weed infestation. Identify and mark the different or unusual field variations on a photograph or color-code the values of a different row in a spreadsheet or keep maps of each harvest, it makes reference easier.
- Use a strategic approach like GIS and GPS, when collecting field data to get the accurate data interpretation on your field, which you can collect, handle, and analyze easily.
- Now that you’ve interpreted the field values and the related problems and have collected the data, it’s time to evaluate your management strategy for pest and weed management, usage of water and other energy resources, and much more.
Challenges:
- The maximum population of the farmer is not familiar with the Precision Farming concept which contributes to educational challenges, lack of expertise in operating smart devices, lack of appropriate research knowledge, funds, and other economic and educational challenges.
- In many rural areas across India, strong and reliable internet connectivity is not available, causing problems to install smart agriculture techniques.
- Along with the use of computer and internet technology in agriculture, cybersecurity is becoming more real. The attackers can hack your data and even steal resources.
Precision Agriculture can be summed up in four simple steps:
Data Collection → Management Planning → Precision Farm Operation → Evaluation
Once you learn how to assess PF tools- GIS, GPS, and DSS, farmers can be able to understand the specific field needs and implement the management techniques that will ensure the optimal use of pesticides, insecticides, water, and other resources and return a profitable revenue. Geoinformatics technologies allow farmers to collect informative and accurate data that will help them understand the field and make informed decisions to maximize quality and productivity. Therefore, farmers should be able to learn how to assess these technologies and implement them with their traditional farming practices.