Precision Agriculture's Impact on Water Resources and the Environment

With population forecasted towards 10 billion by 2050 (FAO, 2019) and climate change continuing its path to change the environment around us, attaining sustainable food security stands out as a global issue that must be addressed. Agriculture as a sector is currently the largest freshwater consumer and responsible for vast amounts of pollution. Water, fertilisers, and pesticides are all inefficiently used within agriculture due to inadequate technology commercially available and historically cheap fertiliser/pesticide costs.

 

This paper has focused on the impact and potential that precision agriculture (PA) can have on increasing resource use efficiency through minimising inputs and maximising yields compared to conventional strategies. Over 60 studies were collated and showed that when compared to conventional strategies, PA was able to achieve a 28.5% average in water savings, a $67.2/ha average cost benefit relating to fertiliser inputs, and an average pesticide saving of 50%. Despite the proven ability of PA from an environmental and agronomical perspective, there is a lack of PA uptake – this is due to a lack of farmer confidence and high upfront capital costs. However, with rising fertiliser prices – previous views supporting the rejection of PA technologies must be reconsidered. A coordinated effort between government, researchers, and farmers must take place to boost PA adoption.