Global Adoption of Precision Agriculture Technologies: Who, When and Why

The adoption of precision agriculture technologies has been uneven, both geographically and temporally. The economic theory of induced innovation predicts that new technologies will be developed and adopted where they make more efficient use of the scarcest productive resources. Indeed, adoption of precision agriculture technologies has been fastest where labor is costly but land and capital are relatively less costly. Where precision agriculture is being adopted, the uneven adoption rate is tied to normal cycles for replacing the expensive machinery in which many precision agriculture technologies are embodied. Equipment replacement decisions are affected by many factors exogenous to the farm, such as bank interest rates and commodity prices. Adoption is likely to continue in labor-scarce, land-abundant countries, with rates of adoption accelerating when commodity prices are high and interest rates low. UNEVEN ADOPTION OF PRECISION AGRICULTURE TECHNOLOGIES Although spatial precision agriculture (PA) encompasses four key information technologies, farmers tend to use it in one of two major ways. The four PA technologies include locatio