New HEAL Alliance Report Offers a 20th Century View of Precision Agriculture

by Ernie Shea (Solutions from the Land) In their released report “Precision Agriculture: A Costly Distraction from Real Climate Solutions”, the Health, Environment, Agriculture and Labor Alliance portray precision agriculture as a costly distraction from proven climate solutions that entrenches corporate power while putting small and mid-sized farmers at risk. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the report is nothing more than a thinly disguised effort to advance one form of agriculture. In doing so it limits the ability of farmers and ranchers from around the world to utilize systems and practices that deliver much needed agroecosystem services that improve quality of life.

In our 21st Century Agriculture Renaissance: Solutions from the Land report, Solutions from the Land (SfL) outlines a land steward perspective on how transformational, systemic change can meet mega-challenges faced worldwide. New approaches, innovations and technologies, including precision agriculture, are key strategies necessary for the Agricultural Renaissance to renew and transform farming systems to not only improve global food and nutrition security, but concurrently filter and store water, improve soil health, enhance biodiversity and mitigate climate change.

With an ever-growing population that is expected to approach 10 billion by mid-century, coupled with a finite amount of productive agricultural land, the world’s demand for agricultural goods and services will grow exponentially in the coming decades. This will require farmers to produce more, with less inputs and without expanding production into environmentally sensitive areas. To do so they will need to utilize “all tools in the toolbox”, including precision agriculture, circular and regenerative systems, agroecology and other innovative approaches.

SfL does not support clustering innovative approaches to sustainable food systems into two categories- (i) sustainable intensification of technology enabled production systems and related land approaches and (ii) agroecological and related approaches. Why reinforce a false dichotomy between these systems other than to purport that one is superior to the other. In reality, we need blended and diverse approaches that meet multiple global challenges; not just food production. We cannot embrace actions to improve food security and nutrition in a silo; the land provides many other goods and services where food/nutrition security must be harmonized with other lands use goals.

This means we must better understand coupled human-natural system relationships and find ways to concurrently be productive and effectively protect and renew our natural resources as we adapt to unexpected events like COVID disruptions to supply chains, limits to resources and changing market and climate conditions. Farmers know there are difficult challenges ahead, are eager to learn more about how to leverage whole system relationships and already are experimenting and embracing new strategies and technologies to find solutions.

As documented in the Association of Equipment Manufacturers study The Benefits of Precision Agriculture in the United States modern precision spraying, conservation practices, and autonomous equipment help farmers reduce inputs while also boosting crop yields and protecting the environment. A great example of how precision agriculture systems are transforming productivity is John Deere’s ground breaking See & Spray™ technology that saved farmers an estimated 8 million gallons of herbicide mix on more than 1 million acres applied during the 2024 growing season. This precision agriculture technology resulted both cost savings to farmers, improved productivity and sustainability and a positive impact on the environment.

Other precision agriculture technologies improve yields from more accurate spacing of seeds, optimize the use of fertilizer and herbicide applications thereby reducing overlaps and improving the placement and rate of inputs. Precision agriculture can also improve water use efficiency through field sensors that avoid wasting water through selective application practices.

The good news story that was missed in the HEAL report is that precision agriculture technologies can provide cost effective solutions for all sizes and scales of farming operations from large scale, integrated crop-livestock systems, to small scale, subsistence farming operations and everything in between. It’s a myth to purport that precision agriculture systems only benefit “big ag” and that corporate interests erode and undermine farmer knowledge about their crops and land. Here again, nothing could be further from the truth.

Farmers are not front-line robotic actors controlled by autonomous corporate production platforms. They know every square inch of their land, walk their fields, observe their animals, and monitor in real time the challenges that are unfolding each growing season. They use smart phones to diagnose conditions and AI tools like Agerpoint’s geospatial technology that is reshaping how field data are collected and analyzed

Two years ago at the 51st plenary session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS 51) in Rome, Solutions from the Land unveiled a new report outlining a farmers’ view of how precision agriculture data should be collected, analyzed, and used in support of investments, markets, and programs that enable and scale agricultural solutions to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) attainment. The report, “Data Policy Guidance on Farm Data: Strengthening Collection, Analysis and Use of Agriculture and Food System Data for SDG Attainment,” discusses the need to recognize farm data as intellectual property of farmers and to maintain farmers’ ability to voluntarily participate in the ag data marketplace; the size neutrality of data: any farmer from anywhere in the world with access to a cellphone and internet signal, including large, mid-size and small holders, should be considered valuable contributors and users of data; and the need to innovate and collaborate to seek solutions that strengthen and help agricultural and forestry enterprises thrive, protect and enhance the environment, and provide multiple benefits in support of sustainability and SDGs.

SfL’s farmer, rancher, forestry and scientist leaders think that with innovation and continuous technological improvement, coupled with farmer indigenous knowledge, the future of agriculture and by extension, quality of life, is indeed bright. READ MORE