Constraints to Precision Agriculture Adoption

Discussion in Field

Constraints to Precision Conservation Adoption

Graduate Students

Research Technician

  • Abby Seibe-Walles (2022)

Collaborator(s)

Funding Source(s)

Why is Precision Agriculture so important?

Increased food demand has led many Nebraskan farms to increase their field sizes, convert non-crop habitat into agricultural land, and reduce crop diversity. However, these increases in farm productivity come at a cost to things like water pollution, soil erosion, and habitat loss. Even more challenging still, many farmers still face economic uncertainty.

To face these new issues, new precision technologies and conservation frameworks allow farmers to do things like:

This reduces excess and waste, thus lowering the cost on the farmer while also promoting more sustainable agricultural practices.

To understand the constraints to precision agriculture and conservation adoption, Morgan conducted interviews with conservation experts to understand their views on the constraints to adoption, while Corrin conducted a 7500 recipient survey of producers and farmland owners to understand the constraints from a producer point of view. Together, both projects allow us to form a better picture of the overall constraints facing producers and farmland owners.

Understanding the communication between farmers and conservation specialists — Morgan

If the land we are trying to conserve is privately owned, we must have more integrative and interactive approaches to see long-term retention. The increased complexity of private land ownership and utilization on the landscape prompts the need for research on collaborative management practices and the current effectiveness of our programs for outreach.

In order to address these questions, my project will aim to address:

  • Collect perspectives and insights into current precision agriculture practices from both specialist, farmer, and landowner perspective
  • Provide a look into communication strategies that are currently efficient and effective
  • Highlight areas of precision agriculture that has questions remaining in terms of implementation and adoption motivation

Comparing both perspectives will allow interchangeable knowledge to help specialists farmers, and landowners understand constraints and opening the dialogue of these very relevant topics, leading to resourceful opportunities moving forward.

Bringing producers' voices to the table — Corrin

Understanding the constraints farmers and landowners face when choosing to adopt precision agriculture will allow agencies to create more universally accessible programs. To assist in this, my project will mainly focus on producers’ preferences in communication and the constraints they face when choosing to adopt precision agriculture.

  • What methods of communication do producers prefer? (Mail, email, podcasts, etc.)
  • How has producers’ experience with experts changed their interest in adopting precision agriculture or alternative practices?
  • How are different demographics of producers affected by financial, time, and knowledge constraints?

By asking these questions, we can help close the gap between producers and agencies.

Theses: