In classical agriculture , most of systems work by means of a GPS receiver connected to the agricultural tractor or combine harvester allowing the identification in real time of the position. The automatic guidance system acts directly on the steering where the GPS keeps exactly parallel the past with little overlap bringing benefits as less stress for the operator, saving time and waste. The guidance system assisted instead provides for a handheld computer on which it is shown schematically the size of the field to be treated and the shape of the tractor; also displays the past just performed. When the operator is to make overlays the PDA reports the event, usually by acoustic signal. Of course, the setting is essential that the operator goes to define the working width of the agricultural coupled to the plow.
Computer technology and robotics are in precision a new scope: the data acquired on the land are systematized to automate processes and to remotely control the cultivation practices. Opportunities or risks for the New Millennium?
Precision farming is synonymous with technological advancement and management in a sector for too long designed so archaic and static. A world in turmoil, the country of the Third Millennium, anything but bucolic.
GPS receivers and assistance systems on tractors, seeders and harvesters, are already in intensive monoculture practices in North America and help you avoid overlapping path plowing, sowing or harvest and process real-time yield and moisture maps of the soil. This reduces the processing time, fuel consumption and operator stress. From Japan to California new apparatuses aircraft for fertilization or pest control variable permitting the release of the substances according to the areas of fertility or to the degrees of contamination, limiting the use of chemical agents. Since 2011, over 30% of the activities of spraying with herbicides and fertilizers on Japanese rice fields is done by small tanks planted on unmanned aircraft (APR or "drones") and in the Napa Valley application extends through the vineyards in a collaborative project between Yamaha Motor Corporations and University of California.
One of the most significant technologies of our century: agro-drones
The debate over the use of drones in agriculture is all the more lively. In Italy it has been addressed in Rome Drone Conference (October 2014-January 2015). Among the interventions of the conference it was presented Agrodron, a quadricopter that 5.5 kg, flying over the crops, can treat up to 10 hectares of land in one hour, to survey activities, spreading fertilizers or pesticides. The drones "farmers" are in addition to traditional agricultural machines and are among the ten emerging technologies applied that will have more impact on the economy of the future, according to the MIT Technology Review ("10 Breakthrough Technologies", MIT 2014).
Wireless networks of environmental sensors and digital maps of the vineyards
Architectures of wireless networks for environmental monitoring are being experienced in the Australian wine sector, French, Italian. Making use of European co-financing for rural development, in the Langhe, they are started by the 2009 projects and ViniVeri SiGeVi for the automatic management of the vineyard, promoted by Regione Piemonte with the technology partnership of universities and ICT companies. Monitoring stations on the ground transmit data collected by the sensors to a processing center; the parameters measured guide decisions of agronomists and enologists, through information platforms with user-friendly interfaces and applications for mobile devices. Finally, aerial photos, maps 3d made from satellite and multispectral high-resolution footage from drones, return in real time the topography of the place, the physical and biochemical composition of the land, the indices of vegetative vigor, water stress of planting.
Pros and cons
The farmers no longer think the campaigns as unitary and homogeneous entity, but as a variable sites for analysis in micro scale, for discrete units that require targeted interventions. The integrated use of digital tools can generate a competitive advantage in an area heavily affected by uncertainty in climate and environmental risk and is finally possible to capitalize on the experiences and elaborate annual predictive estimates. Few farmers have the necessary skills and resources needed to manage change so disruptive: the costs of the new high-tech devices can be amortized over large extensions or monocultures, while weigh heavily on small farmers who work in property fragmented and niche crops. The most critical social issue remains the binomial automation-jobs: as already mechanization in the early twentieth century, also automation can help reduce the number of employees in the sector. The real challenge is cultural so that training, research and experimentation to travel as fast as the technology and the gradual disappearance of unskilled labor take their place alongside new opportunities for professionals more creative.
