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The adoption of GPS in Cropping Agriculture  Robert Lorimer Associate Professor Managing Partner Position One Consulting Brisbane, Australia Email: robert_lorimer@positiononeconsulting.com Web: www.positiononeconsulting.com From the inception of GPS for commercial use, agriculture has been predicted as a large potential market. GPS can be used by growers, agronomists and agencies responsible for environmental and regulatory control. Applications cover the full gamut of GPS products from low cost handhelds to automated steering systems capable of centimeter accuracy. The adoption of GPS has been most extensive in countries with established large scale agricultural enterprises such as the US, Canada and Australia and the adoption rate is growing quickly in emerging agricultural powerhouses like Brazil and Ukraine. It has not all been plain sailing, some of the early GPS providers, with little experience of agriculture, took time to learn the vagaries of the market and mistakes were made in marketing, product introduction and support. However in recent years many GPS manufactures have seen considerable volume growth and the introduction of products by more established agricultural players such as John Deere and Case New Holland has certainly helped give the technology widespread credibility amongst farming communities. Cropping agriculture is not uniform and spans a wide range of plant species, soil types and farming methods. Likewise GPS adoption has not been uniform. Some crop sectors such as irrigated cotton have adopted GPS systems rapidly, others such as sugar cane are only beginning to use the technology to its full extent. Within crop regions some growers purchase yield monitors with GPS, others buy some form of GPS guidance and others a simple hand-held. Whether spending $50,000 or $500, all have taken a decision that GPS will meet a need and can be financially justified. We shall return to this theme later in the article. Considering the considerable economic and environmental benefits of using GPS to individual growers, communities and national economies it is important to understand some of the factors which are influencing the adoption decisions and how the growers needs are being met by the GPS supply chain.
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