World agriculture has new tool for better efficiency

We've been keeping an eye on the nascent agricultural drone industry and are convinced it has a bright future once regulatory roadblocks are overcome.

The technology allows a farmer to "scout" every field as often as desired, spotting problems with irrigation systems, finding specific spots with infestations or lacking nutrients, or myriad other issues.

One vendor cited an example where a farmer, faced with a Russian thistle problem in one field, treated the whole plot and damaging the corn crop in the pocess. Aerial scouting revealed that only a tiny percentage of the field actually needed to have chemicals applied.

Thanks to GPS technology, chemical and fertilizer application and irrigation can be customized according to specific locations and conditions in each field.

The University of Nebraska is expanding some of the same ideas to a worldwide scale, providing a tool to help farmers tailor crops and farming practices to specific areas, with the goal of helping them feed the world.

The Global Yield Gap Atlas helps estimate the "gap" between potential and actual crop yields based on plant, soil and climate data in a specific area. The atlas could help farmers meet the food needs of more than 9 billion people by 2050, while conserving water and other natural resources.

Roberto Lenton, founder and director of the university's Robert B. Daughterty Water for Food Institute, noted how computerized machinery allows farmers to delivery the precise amount of water needed to grow crops on their land efficiently and with minimal waste, taking into account factors such as temperature, humidity, rainfall and soil moisture on specific parcels of land.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the most potential for better farm yields, ranging from 70 percent to 90 percent below potential, according to the Global Yield Gap Atlas.

The atlas was unveiled at the sixth annual Global Water for Food Conference in Seattle, where researchers noted that water available for food production is declining as users compete for the available supply.

Farmers who have used too much water will have to adapt, Lenton said.

Southwest Nebraskans understand the problem -- water is a valuable commodity increasingly in short supply.

All our resources -- political as well as technological -- will have to be targeted at the problem to find long-term solutions.