Precision agriculture has established itself as a vital part of today’s farming systems. The specific roles precision agriculture plays in production agriculture, however, are ever changing — similar to the way sprinters might change positions during a track meet. There are two major ways precision agriculture generates value — increasing returns (more acres per hour, higher yields, premium services for customers, etc.) or reducing costs (reduced overlap waste). The 16th CropLife®/Purdue University Precision Agriculture survey, sponsored by Trimble, shows that when it comes to the adoption of precision technology and the offering of precision services for dealerships, the more obvious the value or savings — either to the dealership itself or its customers — the faster and higher the adoption takes place.
Beyond technology-specific factors, the overall adoption of precision technologies, as a whole, seems to also relate to the health of the overall agricultural economy. The better the economy, the more cash growers and dealerships have to invest in technology. How confident are dealerships about the future of the agricultural economy? According to this year’s survey results, these groups are changing their investment behavior.
Technology At Dealerships
GPS guidance systems have been the anchor in the precision technology relay with either manual control (lightbar) or automatic control (automatic steering) being used by 82% of retailers responding (Figure 1). This year’s results for the usage of this equipment show little change from 2011 results. Lightbar usage was reported by 66% of respondents — the same as 2011 — and automatic steering was slightly lower at 62%, down from 63% in 2011. Forty-four percent of respondents indicated they used both lightbar and automatic steering technologies. In line with historic results, 18% did not report using either guidance technology (22% in 2011 and 22% in 2009).
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