Turning the Environmental Proposition into the Money Proposition? Farmer and Expert Responses to the Call of Precision Agriculture

Twin challenges of economic pressures on farm viability and environmental impacts from agricultural practices pose a conundrum of growing public and policy concern. Many agricultural and environmental experts now look to new... [ view full abstract ]

Twin challenges of economic pressures on farm viability and environmental impacts from agricultural practices pose a conundrum of growing public and policy concern. Many agricultural and environmental experts now look to new techno-scientific advances for more effectively reconciling the new “environmental proposition” with the fundamental “money proposition” of farming. Precision agriculture tools and analytics now provide field-specific data that can identify the intersections between environmental vulnerability, crop productivity, and profitability. Conservation farming advocates see such granular information as a potentially more forceful motivator for farmer adoption of best management practices, such as buffer strips, perennial plantings and cover cropping.  However, past research on the limitations of simplified adoption-diffusion models indicates that a more complex set of social-psychological, cultural, and structural factors shape farmer and landowner responses to and potential use of new technologies and practices on their land. Drawing from literatures on farmer decision-making, environmental sociology, and science and technology studies, this paper reports on an exploratory study of Pennsylvania expert and farmer understandings of if and how both new and more established precision agriculture technologies can help resolve critical water quality challenges in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.  Based on key informant interviews with 10 agricultural and environmental experts and 10 landowners and farmers presently involved in conservation agriculture, we describe these interviewees’ perceptions of how precision agriculture technologies relate to environmental and economic dimensions of agriculture. We conclude with recommendations for next steps in developing a research program to improve sociological understanding of precision agriculture and agricultural land management.