Abstract
In response to global calls for sustainable food production, we identify two diverging paradigms to address the future of agriculture. We explore the possibility of uniting these two seemingly diverging paradigms of production-oriented and ecologically oriented agriculture in the form of precision agroecology. Merging precision agriculture technology and agroecological principles offers a unique array of solutions driven by data collection, experimentation, and decision support tools. We show how the synthesis of precision technology and agroecological principles results in a new agriculture that can be transformative by (1) reducing inputs with optimized prescriptions, (2) substituting sustainable inputs by using site-specific variable rate technology, (3) incorporating beneficial biodiversity into agroecosystems with precision conservation technology, (4) reconnecting producers and consumers through value-based food chains, and (5) building a just and equitable global food system informed by data-driven food policy. As a result, precision agroecology provides a unique opportunity to synthesize traditional knowledge and novel technology to transform food systems. In doing so, precision agroecology can offer solutions to agriculture’s biggest challenges in achieving sustainability in a major state of global change.
Highlights
Agriculture is both a major cause and potential solution for current environmental issues
Though precision agriculture (PA) is often perceived as perpetuating the industrialization of agribusiness [21,107], we have shown how it can be incorporated into decision support systems parameterized with onfarm experimentation (OFE) to inform stakeholder-driven practices
Agroecology has been commonly underestimated as a counterculture, low-yielding, farming movement [28,108]; we have shown how it is a site-specific, quantitative science that pairs well with the management tools offered by precision technology
Summary
Agriculture is both a major cause and potential solution for current environmental issues. We propose that PA and agroecology are compatible, rather than divergent strategies for creating sustainable agri-food systems These two disciplines stem from seemingly incompatible backgrounds, they promote a sustainable agriculture that is profitable, equitable, minimizes environmental degradation and efficiently achieves these goals. On-farm experimentation (OFE) is a collaborative form of science that synthesizes farmer’s tacit knowledge and data to manage, improve, and even redesign agri-food systems [29,33] These on-farm trials place agriculture in an ecological context that is site, history, and time specific. The initial goal of PA was “farming by soil” [34] This means that precision tools allowed large-scale farmers to apply inputs across their fields specific and relevant to the soil types that were present. We explore the potential of precision agroecology as the future of agriculture
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