Economic Evaluation of Conventional Intensive and Precision Farming Technologies

Abstract

In Lithuania, besides the usual farming technologies, starting precision agriculture (PA). The basic principle of the PA is to focus technological operations on the conditions located in separate field locations. When there in separate fields is a significant difference in the amount of nutrients in the soil, the distribution of weeds or diseases, then the crop fertilization and maintenance operations must be precisely adapted to these differences. Most importantly, these differences in soil and crops can be captured and converted into correspondingly differentiated instructions for agricultural machinery. This ensures the timely use of appropriate material resources, helps to optimize yields at the lowest cost, reduce environmental pollution and increase economic returns.The purpose of this study is to perform a comparative analysis of economic indicators for summer wheat cultivation by using a usual intensive and PA technologies, and to determine the financial effect. Economic indicators of summer wheat cultivation by using conventional intensive and precision farming (PA) technologies was determined, i.e. additional cost-benefit effect was calculated and the financial effect generated.Underlying research shows that better economic indicators are obtained through the using of PA technology. It was determined that the cost of mineral fertilizers during spring wheat cultivation in accordance with the PA technology was lower in the two analyzed years and slightly higher in one year than the conventional intensive agricultural technology. The decline in fertilizer costs also led to a decrease in yield, which resulted in less incomes for one year from precision farming than the use of conventional intensive agricultural technology, and received a negative financial effect.[...]