Post #5: Computers in the Workplace

 

Precision Agriculture

Computers in Farming

Computers have made their way into nearly every profession. One area that computers have had an impact on is farming or agriculture in general. With the advent and application of computers, a new practice, that of precision agriculture emerged. Authors Robin Gebbers and Viacheslav I. Adamchuk discuss the emergence and potential of precision agriculture in their 2010 paper. “Precision agriculture, or information-based management of agricultural production systems, emerged in the mid-1980s as a way to apply the right treatment in the right place at the right time” (Gebbers & Adamchuk, 2010, p. 828). Precision agriculture is a way to achieve better resource management in the agricultural field. There are three goals to precision agriculture: 1) optimize resource use to increase profitability; 2) be more environmentally friendly; 3) improved the working environment for farms and farmers (Gebbers & Adamchuk, 2010). This area generally focuses on using data to improve farming efficiency.

The data comes from a variety of sources including GPS, aerial photography, elevation modeling, satellite imagery, soil sampling, crop yield, and more. This data can then be analyzed to help farmers know where and when to plant, where to concentrate fertilizer, when and how much to water, and even maximize the efficiency of harvesting. It is important for farmers to be computer literate because the application of this data and the precision farming techniques can make for a more productive and sustainable farm.

Going forward, computers will continue to play a vital role in farming. Environmental concerns can impact farms both as a major consumer of environmental resources and as a field that is directly impacted by environmental changes. One area of improvement will be in improved sensor resolution as explained in the Future Directions in Sensing for Precision Agriculture book, which is a part of the Progress in Precision Agriculture book series. Improving sensor resolution essentially means collecting more data measurements; more often, closer together, and from more diverse mediums. This means there will be a lot of data to manage. “The ability to obtain gigabytes or even terabytes of data is complicated by the need to store, process and analyse them” (Kerry & Escolà, 2021, abstract). This amount of data will require more and more advanced computers. But computing alone is not the only issue with improved sensor resolution. Another issue comes in collecting that data. “Although computing power is increasing continuously, automated data processes are also required to ease the adoption of new sensing systems” (Kerry & Escolà, 2021, abstract). Applying this improved sensor resolution, and the data gained from it can help farmers not only be more sustainable, but more profitable.

From the historic trends (all the way back to the 1980’s) through to the foreseeable future, computers have played an increasingly important role in agriculture.

References

Gebbers, R. Adamchuk, V. I. (2010). Precision agriculture and food security. Science, 327(5967), 828-831. https://www.posgraduacao.fea.unicamp.br/sites/posgraduacao/files/TEXTO%203.pdf

Kerry, R. Escolà, A. (2021). Conclusions: Future Directions in Sensing for Precision Agriculture. In Sensing Approaches for Precision Agriculture (pp. 399-407). Springer, Cham. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-78431-7_14