Crop rotation and management tools for every farmer?

Abstract

Providing crop rotation and management (CRM) tools for every farmer worldwide might be the breakthrough in solving the UN sustainable development goal (SDG) of zero hunger. Evaluating whether available CRM software fits the needs of farmers worldwide, existing non-commercial CRM tools are categorized and benchmarked on several attributes like needed input data sources, needed minimum field sizes, provided optimization targets, adaptability to different farming regions, and intuitiveness of its graphical user interfaces (GUI). By focusing on the majority of worldwide farmers, which are small-scale, subsidiary, or smallholder farmers, the comparison of nowadays CRM software indicates that almost all tools are going to optimize the profit of the farming activity only, where only a few consider the reduction of fertilizer, the available amount of water, and other targets in the provided crop rotation plan. Further, all CRM tools neglected farms with only a few hundred square meters of farming ground. Based on the benchmark findings, needed research and implementation direction for CRM software are formulated, allowing farmers worldwide to use the benefits of crop rotation and management for tackling the SDG of zero hunger.

Keywords

• Crop rotation
• Farm management
• Sustainable agriculture
• Zero hunger
• Comparison
• UN sustainable development goals