Precision Agriculture - Methodologies for Cost benefit analysis (PAMCoBA)

• Research unit: FOAG
• Project number: 10.20_8

Key words (German)

Präzisionslandwirtschaft, Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse

Key words (English)

precision agriculture, cost-benefit analysis, ICT

Key words (French)

agriculture de précision, analyse coûts-avantages

Short description (English)

Variable rate application (VRA) and Controlled traffic systems (CTF) has a wide ranging potential such as improving the utilization of crop nutrients, improvement of crop quality, reduced overlaps and better production economy. VRA focus on the site-specific application of fertilizers, pesticides and water whereas CTF can allow farmers to reduce input costs (time, inputs and fuel) and increase crop yields. Although both concept has the potential to improve the profit on many farms the adoption of PA technologies remains still low in Europe. The reason could lie in a reduced perception of the benefits of certain PA technologies along with relative high investment costs. Therefore a comprehensive methodology approach that facilitates the understanding of initial investments, cost, and benefits can offer the chance to significantly improve the level of adoption of the most suitable PA technologies.

Project aims (English)

The aim of this project is to design and test a comprehensive methodology to support cost benefit analysis related to PA. The methodology will embrace 3 sets of evaluation related to:

(1) the financial performance and risk

(2) strategic impact

(3) effects on fields operations

(4) Environmental impact and other social benefits.

The four sets will be combined in a single Key Performance Index.

Abstract (English)

The objective of this project was to develop a methodology to support the cost-benefit analysis of precision farming technologies. The developed web-application allows farmers and advisors easily to calculate the costs and benefits of these technologies. The project activities followed the work plan de-scribed in the project proposal. In cooperation with our Greek partner we established a literature review of the available precision farming technologies. The Italian colleagues made the concept for the calculation of the different parameters and made a first concept for the web application. The Danish partner were responsible for the evaluation of the environmental and social impacts of these technologies.
Our Greek partners programmed the web-tool, which has been tested and further developed in coop-eration with all partners. After intense discussions taking into account the numerous tools available for precision farming, a selection of the relevant tools for farmers has been done. The actual PAMCoBA-App includes the following main technologies: Auto steering and CTF, section control, variable rate ap-plication of fertilizer, manure and lime, irrigation and decision support systems. The literature review and expert interviews showed that the variability of the costs and benefits of the different technologies are very high. To solve this issue, the app proposes default values to the user, which can be modified according to respective conditions.
The app will be available in five different languages (German, French, Italian, Greek and English).
In addition, the user can chose a country (Denmark, Italy, Switzerland or Greece) for which he gets default values for the crops and technologies. This concept has been chosen as prices for raw prod-ucts, number of plant protection treatments, fertilization actions etc. are varying strongly depending the country and the region. In addition the user has the opportunity to modify and to save these data too, to get the best possible assessment for his farm.
With this flexibility we hope to deliver a useful tool to farmers, advisors, agricultural schools and other institutions to calculate the costs and profits of those precision farming technologies.