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Overview |
Crop Production |
Crop Pattern |
Crop Yield |
Irrigation |
Soil Management | Precision Farming |
Relevant Products |
Relevant Links
Operationalization of Precision Farming in India
4.4 Variable Rate Applicator:
The variable rate applicator has three components:
- Control computer
- Locator and
- Actuator
The control computer coordinates the field operation. It has a map of desired activity as a function of geographic location. It receives the equipment’s current location from the locator, which has a GPS in it, and decides what to do based upon the map in its memory or data storage. It then issues the command to the actuator, which does the input application (Ravi and Jagadeesha, 2002).
5. Practical problems in Indian agriculture
Precision Agriculture has been mostly confined to developed countries. Reasons of limitations of its implementation in developing countries like India are:
- Small land holdings,
- Heterogeneity of cropping systems and market imperfections,
- Lack of technical expertise knowledge and technology (India spends only 0.3% of its agricultural Gross Domestic Product in Research and Development)
- High cost.
In India, major problem is the small field size. More than 58 percent of operational holdings in the country have size less than 1ha. Only in the states of Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat more than 20 per cent of agricultural lands have operational holding size of more than four hectare. There is a scope of implementing precision Agriculture for crops like, rice and wheat especially in the states of Punjab and Haryana. Commercial as well as Horticultural crops shows a wider scope for precision Agriculture.
In India, broadly two types of agriculture viz., high input agriculture characterized by the provision of assured irrigation and other agricultural inputs, and subsistence farming, which is confined mostly to rain-fed, or dry land regions, are prevalent. Nearly two-third arable land in India is rain-fed. The crop yields are very low (˜ 1 t ha-1) and very good potential exists for increasing productivity of rain-fed Cropping systems.
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