To manage variability of soil and environment different strategies have been applied. Precision agriculture is among best for such management techniques. Precision farming is known with different names like precision agriculture, satellite farming or site-specific crop production. It is a farming administration of growing productivity, whereas decreasing production costs and minimizing the environmental impact of farming based on observing and responding to intra-field variations. It relies on new technologies like satellite images, remote sensing and information technology. It is also aided by farmers’ ability to locate their position in a field using satellite positioning system like GPS. Geological data, GPS-global positioning system, GIS- geographical information system and computer printer are the basic tools.
The awareness of precision agriculture primarily rose in the United States in the mid 1980s. In 1985, specialists at the University of Minnesota altered lime inputs in product fields. Towards the end of the 1980s, this system was utilized to infer the main information recommendation maps for manures and pH level. The utilization of yield sensors created from new advancements, consolidated with the appearance of GPS beneficiaries, has been making strides from that point forward. Today, such frameworks cover a few million hectares. Now all kinds of agronomic and horticultural crops have been grown successfully under this technique.
In the United States, it was connected not with economical agriculture but rather with standard farmers who tried to boost benefits by burning through cash just in zones that require compost. This practice permits the agriculturist to differ the rate of manure over the field according to the need recognized by GPS guided Grid or Zone Sampling. Compost that would have been spread in territories that needn’t bother with it can be put in regions that do, in this manner streamlining its utilization. Around the globe, precision agriculture created at a contradictory pace. Precursor countries were the United States, Canada and Australia. In Europe, the United Kingdom was the first to go down this way, took after nearly by France. In France, precision agriculture initially showed up in 1997-1998. The advancement of GPS and variable-rate spreading strategies anchored precision farming administration hones. Today, less than 10% of France’s farmers are outfitted with variable-rate frameworks. Uptake of GPS is more across the board. In any case, this hasn’t ceased them utilizing precision agriculture administrations, which supplies field-level suggestion maps.
Moran clarifies that her computer model takes a given plant’s physical properties into thought when making its counts. As they are integrated, new remote detecting information are likewise enter into the model to demonstrate which variables–such as air temperature or soil moisture–are changing after some time and by how much. She then uses scientific equations to relate the plants’ temperature to the encompassing air temperature and ascertain how much water the plant is utilizing.
Precision agriculture practices can fundamentally diminish the measure of supplement and other harvest inputs utilized while boosting yields. Farmers hence acquire an arrival on their venture by saving money on phytosanitary and compost costs. The second, bigger scale advantage of focusing on inputs-in spatial, temporal and quantitative terms-concerns natural effects. Applying the perfect measures of inputs in the correct spot and at the ideal time save soils and groundwater, ensure yields and subsequently the whole product cycle. Subsequently, precision agriculture has turned into a cornerstone of supportable agriculture.
By 2050, the world’s population will contact 9.2 billion individuals, 34 percent higher than today. Quite a bit of this development will happen in creating nations like Brazil, which has the biggest zone in the world with arable area for agriculture. To stay aware of rising population and wage development, worldwide sustenance creation must increment by 70 percent in order to have the capacity to nourish the world.
Characterization variability involves climatic conditions, soils analysis, cropping practices, identification of weeds and disease. Considering these factors and utilizing precision agriculture, farmers can create more sustenance at a small amount of the expense. Agriculturists likewise ration soil for economical sustenance generation. Precision agriculture results in a steady sustenance supply, which results in a solid group.
An agriculturist could take a photo of a product with his cell phone and transfer it to a database where a specialist could survey the development of the yield taking into account its coloring and different properties. Individuals could give their own particular perusing on temperature and moistness and be a substitute for sensor information if none is accessible. With developing requests on the world’s sustenance store network, it’s pivotal to amplify agriculture assets in a practical way. Recent research is interestingly ready to comprehend the complexities of agriculture and build up the right climate forecasts and models that empower farmers and organizations to settle on the right choices.
By now, precision agriculture advances are utilized by developed countries as it requires a vigorous IT foundation and assets to do the monitoring. Lot of constraints is there in adopting this practice in Pakistan. Lack of finance and credit facilities are the most important reasons for non-adoption of precision farming. Obtaining credit is a difficult process, because farmers cannot produce collateral security. Drip installation and use of water-soluble fertilizers were very expensive and required credit. Because of output price fluctuations, farmers are not ready to make investments. Lack of knowledge about precision farming technologies is another important constraint, because a majority of small farmers are illiterate and are not able to follow and adopt latest technologies. Labor scarcity is also a problem in adopting precision farming, Due to urbanization and migration, there is scarcity of labor for agricultural operations. Since precision farming is highly labor-intensive technology and operations are time-bound, farmer faced the dearth of labor, especially during stacking and harvesting. The traditional farmers had a wrong perception about the higher yield from the precise quantity of inputs. It is a major constraint to the adoption of precision farming. For Pakistan we must adopt it carefully. We should start it in research stations of agriculture. We can co-ordinate with China or any developed country with such project in this way we can also get skilled manpower and technical know-how.
Authors:
(Dr. Zahoor Hussain, Tehseen Ashraf, Shahla Rashid, Mujahid Ali)
(Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, University of Sargodha)
