News Precision farming
Half of arable farmers want to work with precision agriculture
More than half of arable farmers want to apply precision farming techniques within the next five years, Rabobank Food & Agri Research reports in response to new research. The site-specific application of plant protection products is the most popular option.
Uit the research shows that 64% of the 233 respondents (customers of Rabobank) want to apply one or more precision farming techniques within the next 5 years. Of these, 47% indicate that the site-specific application of plant protection products is the first preference, which means that the use of this technique has increased by 2020% compared to 28. The variable application of nitrogen fertilization is also interesting. In 2025, 35% of arable farmers want to use this technique.
More efficient use of resources
The main reason for using precision farming techniques is the fact that they enable more efficient use of crop protection products. About 64% of the respondents indicated this as the greatest benefit. This is followed by accuracy (44%) and the more efficient use of fertilizers (42%). In trade journals, increasing crop yields is often mentioned as the biggest advantage, but this is not apparent from the Rabobank study. Only 25% see a higher crop yield as an advantage.
Incidentally, only 18% of the respondents indicate that they see a technique in current precision agriculture that saves the entrepreneur time. "So you can say that there is an important task for the suppliers to make the technology more user-friendly," says Stefan van Merrienboer, analyst at Raboresearch F&A.
High investment costs
Incidentally, according to the respondents, precision agriculture does not only offer advantages. The biggest thorny issue is the high (one-off) investment costs. About 60% of the arable farmers indicate that this is a reason not to use precision agriculture on their farm (for the time being). The fact that equipment from different suppliers is not sufficiently compatible with each other is also a stumbling block for many arable farmers (55%).
"We notice that farmers doubt whether the investments in time and money will pay off enough. Another factor is that the translation of the technology to specific operating conditions is often lacking," explains Van Merrienboer.
Who owns data?
According to the arable farmers, data over 5 years plays a greater role in making decisions about cultivation (32%) and cultivation guidance (30%). "If more companies want to share data, this will change the relationship between arable farmers and chain parties. By sharing data, you can, for example, automatically order fertilizers based on historical consumption figures."
However, this development still creates uncertainty. For 15% of respondents, the lack of clarity about ownership of farm data is a problem and 9% say they want to know who owns the data before continuing to invest in precision farming. However, 53% of the arable farmers indicate that a purchase subsidy or contribution from chain parties encourages them to switch to the trend of data collection.
Kimberly Baker
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