Precision agriculture key to sustainability

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 5

The sustainability of agriculture production system appears to be under threat due to over-exploitation of natural resources, environment degradation, fall in biodiversity and exposure to production risk.

Precision agriculture and conservation agriculture have assumed greater importance in recent years to meet such challenges and ensure long-term sustainability of the production system.

Keeping in view the advantages of precision and conservation agriculture, a five- day training programme on ‘Managing natural resources by precision and conservation agriculture’ was held from August 1 to August 5 at Punjab Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institute (PAMETI). The programme was attended by 24 extension officials from State Agriculture, Horticulture and Soil Conservation Department.

Precision agriculture has emerged during recent years as an improved management strategy to apply agricultural inputs at proper place, time and dose rather than applying uniformly over large frame. Precision agriculture is not a technology but management of crops/farms to respond to variability by using advanced technology.

Dr HS Sidhu from Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) discussed how soil management practices in agriculture conservation could minimise disruption of soil structure and natural biodiversity. Conservation agriculture has proven beneficial to improve crop yields, while improving long-term environment and financial sustainability of farming. An exposure visit was conducted on the farms of BISA in Laddowal and villages of BISA were adopted to practically see the impact of conservation agriculture.

Dr Manjeet Singh from Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering discussed the practices involved in precision agriculture. A visit to precision agriculture lab was also conducted to see the latest equipments used in precision agriculture.

RN Sahu, an expert in remote sensing from IARI also discussed the latest technologies in this field.

Dr Rakesh Sharda from Department of Soil and Water Engineering discussed micro irrigation and Dr Basir from CIPHET discussed the agriculture structures and plasti-culture.

Dr HS Dhaliwal, director, PAMETI, highlighted the benefits of precision and conservation agriculture. He emphasised how these practices would help the farmers in reducing the cost of production as they involved optimised use of inputs for agricultural production according to the capability of the land.

What is precision agriculture 

• Precision agriculture has emerged during recent years as an improved management strategy to apply agricultural inputs at proper place, time and dose rather than applying uniformly over large frame
• Precision agriculture is not a technology but management of crops/farms to respond to variability by using advanced technology

What is conservation agriculture?

• Conservation agriculture has proven beneficial to improve crop yields, while improving long-term environment and financial sustainability of farming
• It helps minimise disruption of soil structure and natural biodiversity. The inputs used in agricultural production are in accordance with the capability of the land.