Precision Agriculture: A New Look in the Digital Age

Authorship: BASSOI, L. H.; BERNARDI, A. C. de C.; VAZ, C. M. P.; PIRES, J. L. F.; GEBLER, L.;  JORGE, L. A. de C.; INAMASU, R. Y.

Published in 2024. 

Summary: This work is a milestone for agricultural science in the tropics, as it shows that the significant advances achieved in past decades, which made Brazil the only country in the world with diversified and competitive agriculture, were fundamental, but are part of a glorious past. Brazilian science was competent in promoting the tropicalization of plants and animals originating from cold and temperate climate biomes in the Northern Hemisphere, mainly based on sciences such as biology, chemistry, physics, economics, mathematics and statistics, and having as pillars applied sciences such as agronomy, veterinary medicine, animal science, sociology and administration. In this new phase that is beginning, a new scenario emerges, with the contribution of data science and artificial intelligence, precision engineering and embedded electronics, without losing the importance of traditional sciences. Precision agriculture is consolidating itself in a fundamental phase, in which great challenges demand urgent responses. Climate change has brought new challenges to all crops and biomes. This is in an environment where it is essential to increase the production of food, fibers and renewable energy, in a world where the population is growing, especially in regions with low water scarcity and fertile soils. Food security is no longer a matter of state but of interest to everyone. Added to this is the pressing need to resolve the issue of exclusion of a portion of the world's population due to hunger. There is a new challenge, represented by the change in consumption patterns, which is global. The world has become urbanized, production is far from consumers, especially young people, who have recently brought new demands, configuring a new mindset. Biosecurity, traceability, zero carbon, and animal welfare are some of the new requirements, which go beyond traditional production processes. Precision and digital agriculture has already been presenting solutions to all these new challenges, as it makes it possible to increase food production at declining costs, seeking to contribute, with increasingly precise monitoring of plants, animals and the environment, to better address the climate challenge. By bringing together technologies and effective results obtained in the application of precision and digital agriculture to the cultivation of grains, perennial plants and livestock, this work will be extremely useful for different audiences. The knowledge contained in it is of interest to academics, public and private decision-makers and entrepreneurial producers. This book, in the way its content is masterfully organized and presented, emerges as a watershed in the subject and will be essential to renew the ties between science and entrepreneurship, pillars that have sustained efficient and competitive Brazilian agriculture for decades. To the authors from Embrapa and partner institutions: rest assured that you have made an immeasurable contribution to Brazil and the tropical world, renewing the hope that we will continue to be a nation that provides new solutions to the challenges that arise.​

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