Farm and operator characteristics affecting adoption of precision agriculture in Denmark and Germany

Abstract

Precision Agriculture (PA) has been advocated as a promising technology and management philosophy that provides multidimensional benefits for producers and consumers while being environmentally friendly. In Europe, private stakeholders (farm advisors, farm equipment producers, decision support providers, farmers) and research institutions have been trying to develop, test and demonstrate adoption of precision agriculture solutions with governments financing big projects in these areas. Despite these efforts, adoption is still lagging behind expectations. Whether farmers adopt PA or not is likely to be influenced by several factors. This study intends to identify the main socio-economic determinants of adoption of precision agriculture in Denmark and Germany employing a binary logit model on a cross-section survey data. The results show that farm size, farmer age and demonstration and networking events like attending workshops and exhibitions significantly influence farmers’ adoption decision.

Keywords

• auto-guidance
• gps
• logit
• odds ratio
• perception
• precision technologies