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The conservation benefits and potential barriers of precision ag

Precision agriculture allows producers to farm more efficiently and more sustainably.

Virginia Farmer Dustin Madison testified during a House Ag subcommittee hearing Tuesday about the economic and environmental benefits of precision ag.

“If we can make better decisions and not lose money at the end of a year— that’s huge,” he says. “We never would have been able to quantify that without some of the benefits of precision ag and we couldn’t have recognized it without the benefits of conservation.”

Madison raises corn, soybeans, wheat, and other crops on 20,000 acres in 17 counties.

Madison says he has seen the benefits first-hand on his farm.

“No till gets better as you stick with it, cover crop in a field gets better as you stick with it, and more targeted fertilizer application typically saves you money more each year you do it,” he says.

Also testifying was Pennsylvania State University Associate Professor Heather Karsten. She says the greatest barriers of farmer adoption of precision ag are…

“The cost of capital investments needed to adopt precision technologies, and the technical expertise needed, and the perceived risks of adoption,” she says.  

She says land grant universities are well positioned to address these barriers.

Don Cameron, vice president and general manager of TerraNova Ranch in California also testified during the Conservation and Forestry subcommittee hearing.