Smart Farming

Smart Farming

Rick Worthington
Rick Worthington
Smart Farming

With the Farm and ranch report, I'm Rick Worthington.

Technology is pushing farming into territory it's never seen before. Increasingly, smart farming has been making its way into farms across the country. Smart farming or precision agriculture is a modern farming management concept that uses digital techniques to monitor and optimize agricultural production processes. Inter-American Development offers the insight with precision agriculture.

Farmers need to know precisely what inputs are needed, where in what amount and when. This requires collecting a lot of information from different sources and in different parts of the field on things like soil, nutrients, the presence of pests and weeds. The level of greenness of the plants, inputs applied and the weather forecast. This information, combined with the characteristics of the soil where the plant is located and a forecast of the weather can be used to determine how much of a certain fertilizer should be applied to that plant the next day.

Without a doubt, the promise of more efficient farming, higher yields and environmental sustainability sounds very attractive. Smart agriculture is described by many as the answer to make agriculture sustainable. Naturally, there are some issues. Most notable is that having that type of technology available comes at a price and the price tag is usually out of the range of most farmers.

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