Jordan M. Shockley

A Whole Farm Analysis of the Influence of Auto-Steer Navigation on Net Returns, Risk, and Production Practices

A whole farm economic analysis was conducted to provide a detailed assessment into the economic, risk, and production implications due to the adoption of auto-steer navigation. It was determined that auto-steer navigation was profitable for a grain farmer in Kentucky with net returns increasing up to 0.90% (

Whole farm analysis of automatic section control for agricultural machinery

3.35/acre). Additionally, the technology could be used in reducing production risk. Adoption of the technology also alters production practices for optimal use.

The carbon footprint and economic impact of precision agriculture technology on a corn and soybean farm

Automatic section control was analyzed in a whole farm decision-making framework when implemented on an agricultural sprayer and/or planter. In addition, various field types and navigational scenarios were examined to determine their impact on profitability. It was determined that automatic section control increased net returns under all scenarios; up to

WHOLE FARM MODELING OF PRECISION AGRICULTURE TECHNOLOGIES

36/ha. This investigation highlighted the importance of considering field size in addition to field shape as well as initial navigational scenarios when determining the profitability of automatic section control.

The Influence of Auto-Steer on Machinery Selection and Land Acquisition

ABSTRACT This study explores the environmental and economic implications of precision agriculture technologies (PATs) to partially fill the void in empirically based estimates in the available published literature. In doing so, the carbon footprint of a Kentucky grain farmer under different production strategies is estimated. A BASE model was optimised without utilising any PATs and compared to models which did incorporate three PATs: sub-meter auto-steer, RTK auto-steer and automatic section control. The four whole farm analysis models were formulated under no-till conditions. These models were used to determine if these PATs (1) increase expected mean net returns and/or (2) enhance the carbon output–input ratio. The results show that all PATs produce improvements in both economic and environmental measures over the BASE model. Specifically, automatic section control gave the greatest economic improvement with a mean net return that was 0.59% over the BASE while RTK provided the greatest environmental enhancement with an improvement of 2.42% over the BASE model. All of the improvements over the BASE scenario can be attributed to the adoption of PAT in the models.