Improvements in on-farm resource stewardship with profitable information technologies in rice production

Agricultural production can place burdens on natural environments. Profitable crop production practices can have unintended consequences on farm natural resources that are difficult to monitor. This article considers if precision agriculture’s (PrecAg) information technologies can influence the rates, and profit implications, of using best management practices (BMPs) to improve on-farm natural resource stewardship. If PrecAg can increase rice yields with better management of inputs, reducing costs, and increasing profits, resource stewardship may also benefit. U.S. national farm-level production data from NASS (USDA), confirm background hypotheses of links between PrecAg use and BMPs. The main objective is then to test these relationships in a single, comprehensive, treatment effects model that accounts for PrecAg use, resource stewardship, and rice-farm costs and profits. Capital investments in equipment and other fixed costs are included as adoption control variables. The sustainable BMP rice production practices considered include conservation tillage and erosion control, nutrient-level monitoring, crop rotations, scouting for weeds and pests, and written planning. Conservation tillage is significant in the model and lowers costs with all three PrecAg technologies, but reduces profits. Erosion control has the reverse effect with all three PrecAg technologies having a significant and positive affect on costs, but also raises profit.