Precision Farming System Overview 2003

GPSPresented by : Er. Garvit Garg

What Is Precision Farming

• Application of information technology to manage spatial and temporal variability associated with all aspects of agricultural production.

• It offers the promise of increasing productivity, while decreasing production costs and minimizing the environmental impact of farming

Objectives of Precision Farming

• Agronomical perspective: adjustment of cultural practices to take into account the real needs of the crop (e.g., better fertilization management)

• Technical perspective: better time management at the farm level (e.g. planification of agricultural activity)

• Environmental perspective: reduction of agricultural impacts (better estimation of crop nitrogen needs implying limitation of nitrogen run-off)

• Economical perspective: increase of the output and/or reduction of the input, increase of efficiency (e.g., lower cost of nitrogen fertilization practice)

Need for Precision Farming• The productivity levels of many major crops are

far below than expectation• We have not achieved even the lowest level of

potential productivity of Indian high yielding varieties, whereas the world’s highest productive country have crop yield levels significantly higher than the upper limit of the potential of Indian HYV’s.

• Food crisis: Growth rate of population is higher then growth rate of production.

• Stagnation in agricultural production

Precision Farming System Overview

• Brain of the system is a geographic information system (GIS)which will form the knowledge base and decision making parts of the precision farming system

• Technical and economic decisions related to the farming operation will be governed by this knowledge based GIS. A GIS will be made up of layers of related information, and the GIS will allow a quantitative study of the relationships between the layers

Feasibility Analysis of precision Framing

Area of India = 329 million haArea covered by one reference of GPS =200 Km radiusArea of GPS = 3.14*(200)^2 sq Km =125600 sq km = 12.56 million haTotal no of GPS reference station required for the country = 329/12.56=26Cost of a single GPS = Rs 40 LakhsTotal cost of entire infrastructure = Rs 10.4 croreContribution of agriculture to GDP of India for 2008 =568230 crore Amount spend for R & D =0.3 % of GDP =1704.69 CroresPercentage of amount required from R & D = (10.4/1704.69)*100 = 0.61%

Precision Farming System Overview

• Field topography • Soil types• Surface drainage • Sub-surface drainage• Soil testing results• Rainfall• Irrigation

Precision Farming System Overview

• The GIS will then allow a study of the relationship between these layers of information to determine cause and effect and to base decisions upon this knowledge.

• Examples• Sub soiling depth may be dependent on field

location. • Seeding rates may vary according to field

location, which may depend on factors such as topography and soil type.

Geographic Information Systems

Geographic Information Systems

• We can describe any element of our world in two ways:

Attribute Information:What is it?

Species: OakHeight: 15mAge: 75 Yrs

Location Information: Where is it?

51°N, 112°W

Describing Our WorldDescribing Our World

GIS - Links Data Sets

• GIS software links the location data and the attribute data:

GIS - Analysis

GIS software can answer questions about our world:

What provinces border Saskatchewan?

Spatial Questions:

What provinces have more than 1.5 million people?

Attribute Questions:

Piper aircraft used for Precision farming

HySpex system (VNIR and SWIR) mounted in the airplane

The HySpex VNIR-1600 camera

Transmission network

Obstacles to adoption of precision farming

• Small farm size• Lack of success stories • Heterogeneity of cropping systems and market

imperfections• Land ownership, infrastructure and institutional

constraints• Lack of local technical expertise• Knowledge and technical gaps• Data availability, quality and costs

Status of Precision Farming in India• Tata Kisan Kendra: The concept of precision

farming being implemented by the TKKs has the potential to catapult rural India from the bullock-cart age into the new era of satellites and IT.

• Some of the research institutes such as Indian Space Applications Centre (ISRO), M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, and Project Directorate of Cropping Systems Research, Modipuram, had started working in this direction and in soon it will help the Indian farmers harvest the fruits of frontier technologies without compromising on the quality of land.

Opportunities in India

• In the major agricultural states of Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat there are more than 20 per cent of agricultural lands have operational holding size of more than 4 ha.

• Many horticultural crops in India, which are high profit making crops, offer wide scope for precision farming.

• Funding new hardware, software and consulting industries related to precision farming gradually widening.

Suggestions

• Guidance from the public and private sectors, and agricultural associations

• Farmers will not adopt precision farming unless it brings in more or at least similar profit as compared to traditional practice

• Adoption would be improved if it can be shown to reduce the risk

• Precision farming cannot be convincing if only environmental benefits are emphasized