Introduction:
Future of agriculture will be severely knowledge-intensive, competitive, and market driven. The horizontal expansion of the land is not possible due to the increasing population. Thus, the use of smart agriculture techniques is a must. Precision farming is an agricultural term which is a burning hot topic in the Global agricultural domain.
It is a concept of using new technology and collecting field information at a specific place and time using digital innovation for achieving a good output from agriculture production .It performs the right treatment at the right time and location in an agricultural field. It could be taken as opportunities to enhance their production level and explore global ideas and innovation in a beneficial way. The food production system faces formidable changes today which are genuine to increase in the upcoming days.
In Nepal , Food security has been threatened by declining soil productivity, soil salinity , micro–nutrient deficiency ,water logging, so to alleviate this factor and ensure adequate application of inputs a new form of agriculture is introduced called “Precision Agriculture.” Though, it is still a vague idea to adopt such high technology in Nepalese farming context. Various operational tools like, GPS, GIS, Remote sensing, drones, computer mapping are new concepts of precision farming which are still to be explored in Nepal. Such GPS, GIS monitoring systems could help in locating, monitoring, operating and analyzing various Nepalese farms easily and could be a boon for Nepalese farming.
Precision Farming in Nepal;
In Nepal most of farming location are rather positioned in a marginalized, geographically challenged area where there is high chances of fragmented distorted land, shortage of irrigational water, low quality soil, calamities prone area so such positioning system will be helpful in tracking a perfect land for agriculture intervention, such innovative remote sensing machines, information systems help in identifying right amount of treatment to be applied in a field. It is still only a concept in Nepal and requires strategic assistance from both public as well as private sectors for successful adoption. The successful adoption depends on how well and how quickly the knowledge needed to guide the new technologies develops in Nepal. Assistance from the government and private sectors and training regarding the use of modern technological devices is a must for the development of precision farming in Nepal.
Global positioning system (GPS) in Nepalese farming context;
Figure :GPS Technology in farm.
GPS help in identifying a location in a farming field to assess the spatial variability and site-specific application of agriculture input. Since farming operation technique are mostly traditional the proper land preparation operation is not applied in Nepalese farm so cropping pattern, land preparation techniques are not used so it is hard for positioning of seed, manure, fertilizer in the field by the farmer so this GPS help to track the specific site of application of input. As a tool of Precision farming, GPS satellites broadcast signals that allow GPS receiver to calculate their position, then this information is provided in actual times, means that while GPS tracker is in motion in actual crop field then this information is broadcast into notebook computer of GPS trackers, thus having precise location information at any time allows crop, soil, and water measurement to be mapped easily. It talks about the use of GPS to support agricultural vehicle guidance equipment for this purpose consists of a yield monitor installed; the system supports human guidance by means of a display mapping by GPS receiver put on the vehicle top. These receivers have been developed for maritime navigation purposes; our aim is their optimization in order to apply them for land navigation in particular for farming activities.
Geographical Information system (GIS) In Nepalese farming context:
A Geographic information system is a module of gathering, managing, and analyzing data collected from geo satellites and mounts that information in the form of maps and 3d scenes.
Figure: GIS Technology.
It is a system that sets a database connection through geographical satellite mapping providing information regarding field topography, soil type , irrigation requirements. GIS data sets can be converted to maps to illustrate spatial and temporal variability within the field. In Nepal there are some arid, semi–arid, dry land where farming are operated, where GIS mapping system help in collecting the data regarding soil texture, structure, soil moisture content analysis, OM analysis. GIS through global satellite interface capture, store, analyze and display spatially refer geographical information of various Nepalese agriculture terrains.
Remote sensing tool/applications
In a country where there is no proper weather forecasting system, no proper estimation of rainfall, hailstorms such as disasters eventually come and destroy whole crop stands, it is a challenge for Nepalese farmers to tackle that. Remote sensing devices in a farmer field will ensure those farmers that their farms are safe. Though it is a costly tool at first, if the idea is distributed properly by governmental agriculture bodies it effectively reduces crop failure problems among the farmer. It also helps in sensing the number of inputs used by computer operations.
Remote sensing is the process of inferring surface parameters from measurements of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from the Earth’s surface. As the EMR strikes the field surface or crop surface energy is transmitted from source to object, there is the interaction of EMR with the object and subsequent emission of energy, and that transmission is recorded by photo-graphic sensors, and recorded information is sent to the ground station for the process of data analysis.
Figure: Remote sensing process
VARIABLE-RATE TECHNOLOGY (VRT) IN NEPALESE FARMING CONTEXT
In a country like Nepal where still farmers apply inputs in an agricultural field in their own instinct without measuring, misuse of inputs, pesticide hazards, irrigation water overexploitation is common. In this scenario, VRT technology is an ideal way to overcome these difficulties. It allows fertilizer, chemicals, irrigation water, and other farm inputs to be applied at different rates across a field, without manually setting changing on equipment or having to make many passes across an agriculture field. In VRT technology, for many years in a crop field analysis of different variables are conducted which directly affect the yield ratio of the field and as a result of that analysis, a successful way of determining recommended inputs variables are made.
FIGURE: Diagrammatic Representation Variable rate Application of inputs in field.
PRESENT STATUS OF PRECISION FARMING IN NEPAL AND RECOMMENDATIONS:
Though precision farming is still a new concept in Nepalese Agriculture, it has great potential to merge new innovative cultivation techniques to the farming systems used in Nepal and become a stepping stone towards Agriculture Commercialization and extend the outreach of Nepalese agriculture products to the global market. Actually, In 1992, the National planning commission in support of UNDP established a GIS laboratory within the country. After the Ninth Five-year Plan (1995-2002), the Government has incorporated the use of GIS technology for the preparation of land use maps of our country as a planning aid.
Recently the Nepal government has shown interest in precision farming. In Lumbini province, the government has launched the “Smart village program (2020)” with the motive to increase farmer income through the Commercialization of Agriculture. Recently the Prime minister of Nepal has launched a digital soil mapping technique on February 24, 2021. It is a huge step toward digital agriculture. This mapping system will help the government Agriculture department and local farmers to make better management decisions on distribution and recommendation of fertilizers in crop fields, identify soil PH, and fertility status of the soil. Furthermore, in recent time’s use of drones, remote sensors are seen in commercial farms of some Nepalese farmers. National and international organizations like NARC, CIMMYT had played a major role in introducing precision farming in Nepal. The recently launched digital soil mapping system is also possible due to collaboration between the Department of Agriculture, NARC, and CIMMYT. Government collaboration with CIMMYT has also recently launched the Precision spreader technique in Lumbini Province with a field demonstration on farmers’ wheat fields in Basgadhi, Barbaradiya, and Duduwa regions.
Now it’s high time that the Nepal government should invest more in introducing Precision Farming techniques in a wide range in every district as the future of Innovative Farming lies in this. The traditional Farming System heavily relies on managing the entire field. Decisions that are to made by farmers in terms of planting, irrigation, and application of fertilizers and pesticides are heavily based on crop history of that field, manual predictions by farmers, and regional microenvironment condition. Thus, Precision Farming provides a solution as it combines the use of GPS, sensors, robots, drones, mapping tools, and big data analytic software to inform the decision-making process which is particular to each crop and each part of a crop field with no excessive use of labors. Modern tools such as sensors, camera-equipped vehicles send data and images of every single plant part, such information is transmitted on a real-time basis to farmers remotely. Then farmers will look after signs of stress and disease in plants and apply water and fertilizer as per need.
It is the basic solution to the Nepalese food scarcity problem, land degradation, water degradation, land resources depletion problem, thus the government must encourage farmers to engage themselves in adopting this technique. Moreover, there is a huge role of extension officer agriculture universities, Department of Agriculture, commercially equipped farmers in sharing the idea of precision farming to a layman farmer.
