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| Overview |
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U.S. producers face many national and global changes as they strive to maintain profitability and financial viability. Flat prices for timber and many farm commodities, increasing production costs, global competition, and attention to public goods have forced producers to measure, monitor, analyze, and micromanage all aspects of their operations. Precision farming practices, such as site-specific applications of fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and herbicides in agricultural crops and improved timber and non-timber management and utilization in forests, can reduce costs while minimizing environmental and ecological impacts. Similarly, properly timed and detailed control of animal care and feeding can minimize expenses and maximize animal growth and vitality. This CSREES program emphasizes the use of data and emerging technologies to synthesize and deliver decision tools that improve profitability to all agricultural and forestry enterprises, regardless of size or ownership.
For a long time, detailed information about crop and site conditions was generally inaccessible or was prohibitively expensive to acquire. Advances in electronics, communications, and software during the past several decades have removed those earlier impediments. Farmers and natural resource managers can now collect, analyze, and use vast amounts of detailed information. These technologies, taken together, constitute the tools that enable precision farming.
The term "precision farming" has been chosen here to distinguish it from "precision agriculture." The latter term has come to be primarily associated with site-specific crop management, which addresses field spatial variability by applying location-specific treatments using geo-spatial data. Rather, precision farming includes other activities where targeted treatments or manipulations are prescribed and applied based on detailed, spatial/temporal data collection. Two other major classes of activities that fall under the precision-farming umbrella are precision forestry operations/management and livestock and dairy management (including aquaculture). Each is covered separately in the IN FOCUS section.
All precision farming activities have a number of things in common. First, data are collected with high, spatial and/or temporal resolution. Second, data are analyzed and related to treatments or manipulations that are specific in location and/or timing. Third, prescribed treatments are implemented using systems capable of precise control, tracking, or handling.
These activities often rely on a number of systems: sensors, information technologies, image processing, communications, statistical/mathematical analyses, and electro-mechanical devices. While the introduction of precision technologies into operations involves additional costs, resulting benefits may include lower overall operating costs, greater management efficiency, improved and more consistent products, and reduced negative environmental and ecological impacts.
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Last Updated: July 29, 2008
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