Adoption of precision agriculture technologies in India and in some developing countries: Scope, present status and strategies

Rapid socio-economic changes in some developing countries, including India, are creating new scopes for application of precision agriculture (PA). The implications of dramatic shifts for economic development, urbanization and energy consumption in some developing countries are immense. High-tech nature of traditional PA technologies developed in advanced countries created a real challenge for engineers to search suitable PA technologies for developing countries. It is expected that application of balanced soft and hard PA technologies based on the need of specific socio-economic condition of a country will make PA suitable for developing countries also. 'Soft' PA depends mainly on visual observation of crop and soil and management decision based on experience and intuition, rather than on statistical and scientific analysis. 'Hard' PA utilizes all modern technologies such as GPS, RS, and VRT. Three components, namely, 'single PA technology', 'PA technology package' (for the user to select one or combination) and 'integrated PA technology', have been identified as a part of adoption strategies of PA in the developing countries. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to find out the scope, the present status and the strategies for adoption of PA in India and in some developing countries. Application of PA in cash crop, plantation crop, etc. has been discussed. Application of some medium and low-tech PA tools such as chlorophyll meter and leaf colour chart. in small farms has been included. This exhaustive review of the present status of PA in India and in some developing countries is expected to help to find out the adoption trend and direction of future research. Detailed strategy for the adoption of PA in India has also been proposed. (C) 2009 National Natural Science Foundation of China and Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier Limited and Science in China Press. All rights reserved.