Auto Guidance Systems on Farms: Benefits and Costs for Decision Making

摘要

Farmers who are thinking about investing in precision agriculture technology might consider this example of a farmer who was working with an advisor on an analysis to help with decision making. They assumed two passes, as accurate as possible, were made down the field to spread fertilizer. On a 48' swath, the farmer was overlapping at least 6'. For analysis, they took the 6' of overlap across the farm's acres and calculated the waste in fuel, time, and product, and then multiplied by how manytimes the farmer would spread the acres throughout the growing year. They estimated that in less than one season the farmer would have realized a positive return on the investment.