Precision farming

Abstract

The modernization of agriculture has led to an increasing use of energy and amendments (fertilizer, crop protection products, water) that today need to be better managed in order to optimize their use and to restrict the risks for men and the environment. This problem has given birth to the accuracy farming, which is a new approach of agriculture, based on the integration of information and communication technologies and in which the medium (topography, soil, ground cover) is characterized by its whole spatial variability and not treated as an homogeneous medium. The production process may be locally monitored and optimized for each farming intervention : work on the soil, seeding, fertilization. Accuracy farming, born in the USA in the 80's, now appears in the main farming European countries, via the mapping of cereal production yield. This article summarizes the methods and tools related to accuracy farming: measurement of the medium variability, DGPS localization system, information management, decision making and, finally, modular application tools. Even though this trend seems irreversible, several hurdles still need to be handled, especially those related to agronomic and technological research, in order to ease the spreading of this concept throughout the agricultural world. In that respect, this article presents the work done by the Cemagref in the field of accuracy farming.