Conferences
Adoption and Utilization of Precision Agricultural Technology Impacts on Whole-farm Performance
Terry Griffin, Gregory Ibendahl, Kevin Herbel, Ajay Sharda, Ignacio Ciampitti, and Brian McCornack
Summary
The majority of studies evaluating the agronomic and economic benefits of precision agricultural technologies focused on single fields, in the case of variable rate applications, or utilized whole-farm profitability calculators, in the case of automated guidance. This study utilizes a panel of observational data rather than experimental data to evaluate how farms actually performed after technology adoption. Farms in the Kansas Farm Management Association (KFMA) were queried regarding their utilization of ten precision agricultural technologies; then individual farms were tagged with the respective level of technology such that analyses can be conducted for 1) with and without and 2) before and after adoption. Because it may take several years for farm managers to efficiently utilize technology and be able to adjust their operations accordingly, the whole-farm agronomic and economic impact of precision agriculture technology may lag a few years after adoption. Preliminary results suggest that adoption of GPS guidance has greater whole-farm impacts than the summation of field-level benefits but only for specific farm sizes where it was expected that the decision maker was actively operating farm equipment. This study provides insights into the true farm management impact of precision agriculture.
Presentation Materials
Details
| Conference | 2016 National Farm Management Conference |
| Presentation Type | Concurrent |