Potential of precision conservation agriculture as a means of increasing productivity and incomes for smallholder farmers

Excerpt

At first glance, suggesting precision agriculture for smallholder farmers may seem out of context. However, the circumstances in which most of the smallholder farmers are operating are generally characterized by substandard management practices and input and market constraints. Management standards and precision are often lacking, and high-tech ways of improving those are not affordable for smallholders. However, increased precision will improve productivity significantly, even without extra inputs.

Conservation agriculture could help farmers reduce erosion potential and increase productivity. Conservation agriculture is defined in a few simple principles: (1) management of soil resource with minimum soil tillage disturbance; (2) management of cropping systems using diverse crop rotations and/or cover crops, and (3) keeping the soil resource covered with crop residue to avoid erosion (e.g., use of no-till/direct seeding systems) (FAO 2009). Precision conservation can be used to increase conservation effectiveness and increase productivity (Berry et al. 2003, 2005; Delgado and Berry 2008). Although Berry et al. (2003) defined precision conservation as a term that integrates advances in technologies in the areas of mapping, remote sensing, and computers, they acknowledge that there can be effective use of precision conservation with low-tech systems (e.g., subsistence agriculture) that could use maps or field survey…