Making Farming More Productive

Record harvests in the United States are lowering the prices farmers get for their crops. At the same time, farmers are under pressure to lessen their environmental impact, because agriculture is the major source of U.S. water pollution. One way to cope with both these problems is to reduce the use of expensive fertilizers and pesticides by using computers, digital controllers on tractors and harvesters, and GPS satellite links that enable a new level of precision for farming. These technologies, collectively known as precision agriculture, can automatically match inputs to variable local conditions within a field. The benefits include higher yields, cost savings, higher quality produce, and less off-farm pollution. 

Most of these benefits still lie ahead, because less than four percent of U.S. farms now use these new techniques. According to Francis Pierce, Director of Washington State University's Center for Precision Agriculture, the technology itself also needs improvement. Today's commercial agriculture depends on close integration among farmers, suppliers, and food companies and needs an Internet-based technology that can accommodate far more data than the stand-alone PC-based tools available now.

The potential market for precision agriculture tools is growing rapidly. In the next few years an estimated 80,000 commercial farms in the United States and another 60,000 elsewhere could adopt advanced digital tools and services.