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Over the last 10 years, no-till farmers have had a relatively consistent pattern of adoption for precision ag technology. Trends among key precision technologies show a relatively consistent pattern of expansion with a temporary downturn in 2020 and 2021, then a return to similar rates of expansion in 2022 and 2023.
In a 2023 Ag Equipment Intelligence survey, no-till farmers were asked to project whether they expected to be purchasing each technology within the next 5 years. Even for already widely used options like variable rate fertilization, GPS autosteer, auto seed shutoff and yield monitoring data analysis, more than 15% of no-tillers indicated they would probably be purchasing the technology in the next 5 years.
Among technologies with less than 40% current adoption, drones, VR seeding and remote sensing were given at least a 15% purchase projection in that same time period.
There are several drivers for adoption of precision agriculture technologies, which are covered in the report:
- Improved economics (cost/return ratio)
- Practical farming advantages (agronomics) and operational benefits
- Sources of trusted information and recommendations
- Advantages linked to farm scale and land tenure
- Technological advances
- Growers’ thinking and orientation
Just like there are drivers for adoption, there are also some barriers. Broadly speaking, the barriers fall into these main categories:
- Economic barriers
- Technology issues
- Lack of expertise
- Trust issues
- Uncertainty and practical complexity
This report also looks at different precision ag technologies on a case-by-case basis and include adoption and future use data from multiple sources that shows how different aspects of precision ag technology are being adopted by no-tillers as well as the prospect for future adoption of these technologies.