Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 30 (2001) 45 50 www.elsevier.

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Possible adoption of precision agriculture for developing countries at the threshold of the new millennium
Wang Maohua
Research Center for Precision Agriculture, China Agricultural Uni6ersity, Qinghua Donglu, Beijing 100083, Peoples Republic of China

Abstract The concept of precision agriculture, based on information technology, is becoming an attractive idea for managing natural resources and realizing modern sustainable agricultural development. It is bringing agriculture into the digital and information age. The practice has smoothly extended into some developing countries. The basic principle of managing soil and crop variability within a eld is certainly not new. It was named intensive and meticulous cultivation by the Chinese people and has been long regarded as the cream of Chinese conventional agriculture. Toward the new millennium, China is preparing to follow the experience of the developed world and is starting to investigate the new technology. This paper considers the possible adoption of precision agriculture for developing countries and ideas in conducting the practice in China. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Precision agriculture; Developing countries; Strategic approach in agriculture

1. Foreword Toward the new millennium, man is still facing the crucial challenge of ensuring food supplies and sustainability of agricultural development. Ever-increasing population, resource shortages, and degradation of the ecological environment have added even greater pressure on developing countries. In the past 50 years, world agriculture has experienced enormous changes. Industrialized countries have created a modernized agricultural system with high productivity and advanced techE-mail address: mhw@public.bta.net.cn (W. Maohua). 0168-1699/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 6 8 - 1 6 9 9 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 5 4 - X

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nology. In the developing countries, however, the word poverty inextricably remains linked with agriculture. Most of the population in developing countries is still engaged in traditional farming with limited application of modern technologies in rural areas. The key restriction is obviously due to the backwardness of agricultural sciences and technology, and limited input to agriculture. Formulation of the world trade system and the information technology (IT) revolution have changed the external environment of agricultural development for all countries. The information and knowledge-based era will create new opportunities to accelerate the transformation of traditional farming into modern agriculture. Therefore, it is necessary to learn the new trends of modern information technology for agriculture in the developed world and investigate appropriate ways for promotion of new technology application in developing countries. Even within underdeveloped countries, there exists a clear imbalance between less-modern regions and relatively more developed areas. The latter have the potential to accept more advanced technologies and can act as incubators for new ideas and sophisticated technologies based on their domestic conditions. Agricultural engineers are facing new challenges and need to integrate multidisciplinary approaches to solve complex problems in sustainable development of agriculture. They need not only to expand activities for equipment innovation, but also to be experts in production, processing, and management for the entire food production chain. Modern agriculture requires integrated support of agro-biology, engineering technology, and economic management sciences. Information technology will greatly change the tools for farming with diverse sensors, adaptive actuators, high performance software, and algorithms for data acquisition, processing, conversion, storage and transfer as well as an integrated approach to making management decisions. Since the beginning of this decade, precision-farming technology has attracted great interest in the developed world. It is regarded as a revolutionary approach for improved crop management and for sustainable agricultural development. Many related research institutions, academic communities, manufacturers, service industries, and dealers have become involved in the development of this potential market. It is a promising technology in the forthcoming century.

2. Precision agriculture: managing agricultural systems based on information and knowledge The main activities of agricultural production are based on wide spatial resources. Information in agriculture is characterized by a wide space domain, time variability, and, particularly, visual patterns and frequently undened characteristics. Development in spatial information technologies, such as global positioning system (GPS), geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS), has been rapidly applied to agriculture. Precision agriculture is a new concept for sustainable utilization of agricultural resources. The technical support has been quickly commercialized and continuously improved in trial practice. Up to now, the main efforts and applications have

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focussed on site-specic crop management. It seems to be one of the prospective leading technologies in crop production in the new century. The main ideas of precision agriculture are understanding spatial variability of soil properties, crop status and yield within a eld; identifying the reasons for yield variability; making farming prescription and crop production management decisions based on variability and knowledge; implementing site-specic eld management operations; evaluating the efciency of treatment; and accumulating spatial resource information for further management decision making. The principal required technologies are partly available commercially and are rapidly improving. They include differential GPS, GIS and RS technologies; quasi-real time sensing technologies for spatial variable acquisition; spatial data processing and mapping tools; decision support systems for crop management based on modeling; incorporating simulation with expert systems; intelligent farm machinery or appropriate technological tools for treatment; and system integration software and standardization. Challenges facing engineers for promoting precision agriculture are to develop fundamental and applied research on GPS, GIS and RS for farming use and real-time sensors and control technology for spatial variables in the eld, such as crop yield, soil parameters, crop status, disease and weed distribution. New methodological approaches, such as articial neural networks, genetic algorithms, fuzzy control, and wavelet techniques, could be used effectively with advanced microprocessors. New, digital signal processing chips are suitable for use in agricultural information processing systems. Designs may be simplied and performance/price ratios will be much improved. Information dissemination technology is the most important factor for developing countries to deliver scientic and technological achievements to farmers having computer technology. Production and management knowledge can be translated into easily understood multimedia presentations. The greatest efforts will focus on integrating available technologies and on developing interface techniques and applied software for farm use.

3. Strategies for adopting precision agriculture in developing countries In the 21st century, man will enter into a knowledge-based era. The poverty of information has become a new problem in restricting social and economic advancement for developing countries. However, challenges and opportunities coexist. Many developing countries have paid great attention to speeding up information infrastructure construction in recent years. A favorable development environment to attract new technology and knowledge has smoothly taken shape. There is distinct regional imbalance in socio-economic development even within each developing country. Each country will have to draw its own strategies for using the opportunities provided by the IT era. In the promotion of information high-tech research, the time difference in starting to use high-tech for agriculture among various countries is being shortened. Each country has to identify its strategies and priorities for its development. Agricultural high-tech trial farms are emerging very quickly in many developing countries. The renovation of traditional farming

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technology through precision farming techniques is a good strategic objective. It integrates a multidisciplinary approach involving agronomists in various elds, engineers, manufacturers, and economists to achieve sustainable development. Such advances could not only integrate a series of innovative tools to support traditional farming reconstruction, but also stimulate a technical revolution among agriculturists and farmers. Precision agriculture is actually an information- and knowledge-based technology. It is bringing agriculture into the digital and information age. The basic principle of adopting soil and crop management to specic within-eld conditions is certainly not new. Small farmers have always employed precision agriculture because they knew every square meter of their farms and how production can vary from one square meter to another. However, this is not possible for large farms. In China, precision cultivation was named Intensive and meticulous cultivation. The ideas of modern precision agriculture have been promoted based on site-specic crop management since the beginning of the 1980s. It has been driven by continuously increasing farm scale and bigger machinery, which moved producers away from small-scale eld variability, as well as increasing competitive pressures from crop producers in the developed world. In developing countries, most of the population are still engaged in traditional crop cultivation and are facing the crucial challenge of ensuring grain supply. Improving their crop production systems will be given top priority in their socio-economic development. The problems are small-scale farming and knowledge poverty. In general, development should be seen as an evolutionary process. It should be possible to demonstrate precision agricultural ideas in larger farms and in agricultural hightech parks or through agricultural technical extension systems with contract services to farmers. The important thing is to extend new technological ideas and to promote a traditional management concept. Based on precision agriculture practices, it should be possible to integrate a set of appropriate technologies to improve traditional cultivation technology in accordance with local conditions. During the recent agricultural reconstruction in many developing countries, intensive horticulture, animal-raising industry, and value-added processing of primary agro-products have shown great potential and opportunity. The ideas of precision agriculture as an information- and knowledge-based approach will extend into the application of precision horticulture, precision animal and aquaculture management, precision processing of agricultural products, as well as precise management for the entire agricultural industry. Priority for using integrated technology based on information and knowledge should be given to application areas that can bring greater benets to farmers.

4. Prospects of precision agriculture practice in P.R. China Since 1978, China has successfully implemented an economic reform and an open policy to the outside world. Agriculture has steadily entered a new development stage to improve product quality, economic benet, and competitiveness based on

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agricultural science and technology. Approaching the new millennium, China is drawing up a new strategy to meet the opportunities of a knowledge-based economy. The Ministry of Science and Technology has planned the National Agricultural Science and Technology Project to ensure a food supply for 1.6 billion people by the middle of the 21st century. Fundamental agricultural research will be emphasized in the national development program. A nationwide agricultural hightech research program for the period 2001 2010 (the so-called Second S-863 Project) is in preparation. The new Development Program of Agricultural Science and Technology for the period of 2001 2015 is in the planning process. During the creation of these strategic programs, biological and information technology were regarded as leading elds for promoting the new agricultural technological revolution. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the development environment for applied electronics and information technology has been much improved in the country. The information infrastructure in the country has reached an advanced level. Most international electronic information companies have created facilities or joint ventures for manufacturing related products in Mainland China. This means that the social and material support environment for reconstructing traditional industries with information technology is changing dramatically. Mature techniques developed in advanced countries can be digested, absorbed, and promoted to develop the domestic industry. An integrated approach based on available devices and equipment from the international market will be adopted to promote renovation of conventional technology and to develop domestic applied systems. After years of discussion and development research, China is planning to start precision agriculture practices based on the domestic conditions in various regions. Some trial farm projects for precision farming are planned for a suburb of Beijing, state farms in northeast China, Inner Mongolia, and so on. They are targeted at accumulating experience and demonstrating ideas for precisely managing agricultural resources and production systems. Since the mid-1990s, 153 agricultural newand high technology parks at provincial and prefectural levels have been set up in the country. As incubators of technology in agriculture and its industrialization, the accumulated experience of precision agriculture practice will be extended in accordance with the local conditions. Many related international companies and dealers are involved in the potential markets and new cooperative opportunities. The concept of agriculture in China refers to a wide range of activities including crop production, horticulture, animal husbandry, processing industries, and the marketing process. A precision agriculture system should be regarded as being composed of several subsystems, such as, precision farming for site specic crop management; precision intensive horticulture; precision animal raising based on individual, or small group, identication and information; precision value-added processing of post-harvest products; and precise organization and management of the entire system. Technological systems are targeted at creating high productivity, lower cost and higher benet, less adverse environmental consequence, and improved competitiveness of the agricultural system. As much as possible, farmers will select a rational and feasible approach based on their production conditions and knowledge.

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The rst research center for precision agriculture was set up in the China Agricultural University (East Campus), Beijing in 1998. As a leading institution in precision agriculture research, its main tasks are to study trial farm projects, to conduct applied research, and to develop international technological cooperation and academic exchange based on social requirements and domestic conditions.

5. Conclusions Precision farming is an attractive option to promote sustainable agricultural development. It is now possible to base resource utilization and management decision-making on information and knowledge. Many supporting technologies are being developed quickly with possible application in agriculture. Precision farming presents both challenges and opportunities for agricultural engineers. The 21st century is a century of biological and information technology revolutions. The fundamental forces for ensuring worldwide food security and human welfare will lie in scientic and technological progress. Development of precision agriculture practices will provide good opportunities for renovating conventional farming tools and technology, as well as for disseminating advanced knowledge to farmers. In the forthcoming knowledge-based era, a good vision of what will be happening tomorrow is the key to the further success of modern farming communities.

Further Reading
Robert, P.C., 1999. Precision agriculture: research needs and status in the USA. Proceedings of the Second European Conference on Precision Agriculture, Denmark. Wang, M.H., 1988. Precision farming an intensive and meticulous cultivation technology in the information era (in Chinese). In: Proceedings of Scientic and Technological Progress, vol. I. Chinese Science and Technology Publishers, Beijing. Wang, M.H., 1998. Opportunity of electronics and IT for agriculture in developing countries. Keynote paper for the International Agricultural Engineering Conference. AAAE, Bangkok, December 7 10, 1998. Wang, M.H., 1999. The development of precision agriculture and innovation of engineering technologies. (in Chinese) Transactions of Agricultural Engineering. CSAE, Beijing, vol. 15, March 1999. Wang, M.H., 1999. The technological advance and equipment innovation in the precision agriculture (in Chinese). In: Digital Earth. Publishers of Chinese Environmental Sciences, Beijing, pp. 47 54. Wang, M.H., 1999. Information science for agriculture (in Chinese). Forum on the Core Scientic Problems toward the 21st Century. National Foundation Commission of Natural Sciences, Beijing, May 1999.