Precision agriculture — high-tech equipment that allows farmers to tailor seed, fertilizer and pesticide applications to the varying yield potential of their land — requires a significant investment in capital and time. A USDA study says the largest corn farms, those covering more than 4.5 square miles, are the leaders in adopting the equipment, which includes yield monitors for GPS mapping of fields, auto-steer controls of planting and harvest equipment, and variable rate applicators.
Overall, adoption rates of precision agriculture (PA) technology “are generally less than 50 percent, with variable rate technology lagging the others,” said the Economic Research Service study. “The largest corn farms, over 2,900 acres, have double the PA adoption rates of all farms.” Up to 80 percent of those farms use auto-steer and GPS mapping of yields and 30-40 percent use variable rate planting and spraying equipment.
“The impact of PA technologies on profits for U.S. corn producers was found to be small but positive, which may explain the slow but steady growth in adoption,” says USDA. GPS mapping can boost operating profits on an average-size corn farm by 2 percent, guidance systems by 1.5 percent and variable rate technology by 1.1 percent.
Because of the outsize effect of the relatively few but very large farms, yield mapping is used on about 40 percent of all U.S. corn and soybean land, auto-steer and other guidance systems on more than 50 percent, variable rate applicators on 28-34 percent, and GPS soil maps on about 30 percent.
Looking to the near future, USDA said the higher adoption rate of PA technology by larger farms than smaller farms suggests that at present economies of scale favor big operators, who have larger cash flows that can be used to acquire expensive equipment.
“Industry publications tout the rapidly growing sophistication of PA technologies and their ease of use,” said USDA. “Also, farm machinery is becoming increasingly automated with standard machinery being GPS-ready, and input suppliers synchronizing data with crop production recommendations … If PA technologies become easier to implement, they could boost profits for more producers, with environmental benefits.”
The study was based on crop and financial information provided by farmers during USDA surveys conducted annually.