ITU SFL Advanced English Program ING 112A

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Tables & Figures Interpretation Assignment

Precision Farming: Economic Issues

The goal behind precision agriculture (PA) is to ensure that soil and crops receive the essential
nutrients for optimum health and productivity by using information technology (IT). When managing
crops, PA considers variables such as location, weather, soil type, plant growth, and yield data with the
help of predictive analytics software analyzing the information to advise farmers on crop rotation, the
most advantageous periods to sow, harvest, and manage the land. To help farmers identify crops that
need treatment and choose the best amount of water, fertilizer, and pesticides to apply, agricultural
control centers using PA technology can integrate sensor data and imagery input with other data.
However, there is debate on whether precision farming is a cost-effective option or not. While some
argue that precision farming is profitable, others claim that it is an economic burden for the farmers. For
example, as illustrated in the bar graph on money saved per acre in Figure 1, thanks to use of technology
namely, money saved thanks to yield mapping, Global Positioning System (GPS) soil mapping,
guidance system, and Variable Rate Technology (VRT) combined with yield map and soil map account
for 25.01, 13.45, 14.98, 21.87, and 20.56 respectively (USDA, 2010). It is also noteworthy to mention
that the larger the size the greater economic benefits were achieved. To illustrate, based on the bar graph
in Figure 2 depicting net gain in dollars per acre, a 96,84 % benefit was observed for farms greater than
5,000 acres followed by 77.93% for farms 1,000 to 5,000 acres and 82.21% for farms smaller than 1,000
(Pope & Sonka, 2010). On the other hand, adoption of precision agriculture is not always profitable. For
instance, as presented in Table 1, while profit/cost mapping in terms of geographic technology was 35%
profitable in 2017, it fell down to 5% in 2019. Moreover, among the observational technologies used in
precision agriculture, the profit gained from satellite/aerial imagery was 32% in contrast to 12% in 2019
(Mitchell et al., 2020). In conclusion, although precision farming is not 100 % budget friendly, if applied
correctly, it has economic benefits for the farmers.

CDO & Testing, Fall 2023

 ITU SFL Advanced English Program ING 112A
Sample Paragraph
Tables & Figures Interpretation Assignment

Figure 1.
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Resource Management Survey.
2010.

Figure 2.
Micah Pope and Steve Sonka. 2020. Quantifying the Economic Benefits of On-Farm Digital
Technologies

CDO & Testing, Fall 2023

 ITU SFL Advanced English Program ING 112A
Sample Paragraph
Tables & Figures Interpretation Assignment

Table 1.
Sean Mitchell, Alfons Weersink, and Nicholas Bannon.2021. Adoption barriers for precision
agriculture technologies in Canadian crop production.

CDO & Testing, Fall 2023