Precision Agriculture Could be Smallholders’ Game Changer

Precision agriculture (PA) as defined by the International Society of Precision Agriculture refers to “a management strategy that gathers, processes and analyses temporal, spatial and individual data and combines it with other information to support management decisions according to estimated variability for improved resource use efficiency, productivity, quality, profitability and sustainability of agricultural production.” 

Smallholders’ crop farming of Bangladesh has been struggling with farm management strategy, where resource use efficiency, productivity, profitability, and sustainability are the key on-farm constraints. In addition, crop farming is also challenged by various factors related to off-farm value addition and commercialisation. However, dealing with ‘on-farm constraints’ could be the low hanging fruit for smallholders because crop farming has been undergoing transformation towards ‘sustainability, safety and profitability’. 

Resource use efficiency, productivity, profitability, and sustainability are the key ‘on-farm constraints’ for smallholders like Bangladesh. Dealing with ‘on-farm constraints’ could be the low hanging fruit for smallholders because crop farming has been undergoing transformation towards the evolutionary process to increase ‘sustainability, safety and profitability’. 

Resource use efficiency, productivity, profitability, and sustainability are the key ‘on-farm constraints’ for smallholders like Bangladesh. Dealing with ‘on-farm constraints’ could be the low hanging fruit for smallholders because crop farming has been undergoing transformation towards the evolutionary process to increase ‘sustainability, safety and profitability’. 

Smallholders’ on-farm constraints 

Bangladesh’s existing whole field sole cropping system has been struggling with labour productivity. The availability of agricultural labour is one of the prime challenges for arable farming due to the ageing of farmers, preference of off-farm income, and young generation’s negative perception of agriculture. The educated youth are reluctant to take agriculture as a career because it is seen as hard, dirty, manual work. They prefer desk jobs in offices. Historical trends from 1991 to 2021 show that the percentage of total employment in agriculture is decreasing substantially. Bangladesh is facing a more rapid decline in the agricultural workforce compared to regional peers such as Pakistan, India, Myanmar, and Nepal (Chart 1).

The small, fragmented farms with irregular size and shape fields often have low labour and land productivity. Research shows that the percentage of small farms (i.e., 0.02 –1.01 ha) are increasing over time in Bangladesh.  The percentage was 75% in 1983 and 84% in 2008. Over the last five decades, small and fragmented whole field sole rice cropping systems operating under partial conventional mechanisation achieved productivity gains, but the productivity is still very low for non-rice cereals-pulses-oilseeds. Bangladesh has small farms as compared to global and regional peers (Chart 2). In the rapidly changing socio-economic context of volatile prices and supply disruptions, relying on small farms with tiny plots challenges food and nutrition security. 

Another on-farm constraint of smallholders’ agriculture in Bangladesh is associated with the existing levels of mechanisation. Bangladesh is well-known for partial conventional mechanisation, where primary tillage, land preparation, irrigation, and threshing are often mechanised. At recent times mechanised harvesting is becoming popular with government intensive support systems, but other operations are mostly human labour intensive. Bangladesh is yet to take the advantage of mechanised planting, and mechanised application of pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers (Chart 3). 

 The market for trailed and self-propelled sprayers is not yet developed in the smallholder’s context of Bangladesh. Partial conventional mechanised farms, even with the evolving whole farm conventional mechanisation, will be unable to keep up with technical, economic and environmental goals. 

However, developing agroecological and economic synergies could be difficult with conventional mechanisation, whereas the ‘sustainable, safe and profitable’ vision of the ministry of agriculture expected to promote mixed cropping to maintain food production and limit environmental footprints. Similarly, Bangladesh Delta Plan envisioned optimal and integrated use of land, and water use efficiency and security. The macro vision of Bangladesh expects Smart Bangladesh by 2041.

The misuse and overuse of synthetic chemicals in existing whole-field sole cropping system is another challenge for smallholder farming. Per ha historical fertiliser consumption shows that Bangladesh uses substantially higher fertiliser compared to Nepal, Thailand, India, and Japan (Chart 4).

The ‘on-farm constraints’ that Bangladesh’s arable farming has been confronting means that smallholders crop farming should think ahead about the transitional pathways that could facilitate the ‘sustainable, safe and profitable agriculture’ vision of Bangladesh and keep synergies with government other macro level visions.  Consequently, precision agriculture (PA) technology could help Bangladesh as part of sustainable intensification solutions. 

Smallholders’ crop farming should think ahead about the evolutionary transitional pathways that could facilitate the ‘sustainable, safe and profitable agriculture’ vision of Bangladesh and create synergies with government other macro level visions, where precision agriculture could change the game.

Smallholders’ crop farming should think ahead about the evolutionary transitional pathways that could facilitate the ‘sustainable, safe and profitable agriculture’ vision of Bangladesh and create synergies with government other macro level visions, where precision agriculture could change the game.

Precision agriculture to tackle on-farm constraints 

The world is entering the age of agri-tech (i.e., the use of technology for farming that is developed to improve efficiency, sustainability and profitability) that revolutionises PA. The concept of PA first emerged in the early 1980s in the US. Overtime, the PA technology is moving forward for more accuracy and overall systems efficiency. 

Around the world the typical mental image of PA is of gigantic equipment operated in large fields with endless borders. There has been almost no PA technology commercialised for small holders. However, smallholders’ agriculture could enter the age of PA technology with the ‘Smallholders’ Model’ (e.g., ‘Bangladesh Model’).

The rationale for suggesting a ‘Smallholders’ Model’ is to tackle the on-farm constraints mentioned above. For instance, the ‘National Agricultural Mechanisation Policy 2020’ of Bangladesh suggested advancing agricultural transition (i.e., transition mainly from partial conventional mechanisation to whole farm conventional mechanisation). However, Bangladesh should think ahead how the country could address the on-farm constraints that are also related to the following questions: (i) How field size and shape constraints will be handled with conventional whole farm mechanisation? (ii) To what extent land consolidation will be promoted? (iii) What will be the profitability of different levels of mechanisation? (iv) Under what conditions educated youth would choose agriculture as a career? (v) How smallholder agriculture will achieve the production goals of productivity and profitability, and environmental goals of agroecology and ecosystem services regeneration? and (iv) Which farm management strategy could better fit government transitional plans even with increasing agricultural labour scarcity and climate change scenarios?

Since the birth of Bangladesh, the first three decades Bangladesh agriculture was fully concentrated on ‘food security’. Since that time, it has been evolving towards ‘sustainable, safe and profitable agriculture’ to achieve a balance among technological, economic and environmental goals. Similarly, the ‘Smart Bangladesh Vision 2041’ and ‘Prosperous Delta Vision’ envisioned to facilitate the inclusion of PA technology, and maximise the full potential of one of the largest deltas of the world to optimal and integrated use of land, and water use efficiency and security. In this backdrop, PA (i.e., the management strategy that takes account of temporal and spatial variability to improve sustainability of agricultural production) could change the game of existing subsistence farming towards farming as a business model.   

The ‘Smallholders PA Model’ (i.e., ‘Bangladesh PA Model’) could tackle the on-farm constraints. Take for example, low-cost small autonomous machines (i.e., crop robots) costing similar to a motor bike could operate efficiently in small and fragmented tiny plots of Bangladesh irrespective of field size and shape. The overall system’s efficiency could be increased as crop robots could be operated in predetermined field paths with obstacles in the field programmed efficiently. Research in the UK found that small retrofitted autonomous machines (i.e., 28 kW tractor and combine which is similar to the power used in Bangladesh) decreased wheat production cost by EUR15/ton to EUR 29/ton and EUR24/ton to EUR 46/ton in small one ha rectangular and non-rectangular fields respectively compared to larger 112 kW and 221 kW conventional machines operated with human operators. 

Crop robots are PA technology because they have the potential to cost effectively increase the precision of input applications and to collect very detailed data on agricultural production. Crop robots will bring a paradigm shift in crop farming as they have the potential to supersede the rule of thumb of conventional mechanised agriculture (i.e., ‘get big or get out’ and promote ‘structural change of arable landscapes that is land consolidation’). With crop robots the rural landscape of Bangladesh can remain unchanged, while the farm management and business are brought into the 21st Century. 

Crop robots could mitigate the agricultural mechanisation gaps that exist in Bangladesh. Farming as a service model will help farmers. The existing custom hire service for tillage, irrigation, harvesting and threshing could be an example for other farm operations yet to be mechanised. For example, farmers could operate their farm through calling on-line ‘Uber type’ systems as many farmers are using android mobile phones. Similarly, off-line booking could be made for those who have no access to such facilities. The service model could be made simple, where operations like land preparation, seeding and spraying could be completed with the same autonomous tractor. The harvesting operation will be done with one autonomous combine with minimal time. The use of PA technology (e.g., crop robots) could increase labour productivity. Like conventional mechanisation, an operator is not needed driving each machine during on-farm operations. One operator (mainly for supervision either on-farm or remotely) with minimal human supervision could operate swarm robots (i.e., multiple smaller robots could be used in neighbouring plots to accomplish farm work usually done by larger conventional machines with human operators). The adoption of such PA technology would attract the educated youth irrespective of gender because little physical strength is required. 

Crop robots could also increase land productivity through limiting the misuse and over utilisation of synthetic chemicals and promoting crop farming beyond whole field sole cropping. On-the-go targeted applications could substantially reduce synthetic chemicals use. It is found that targeted pesticide application by crop robots could reduce chemicals used by over 90%. Crop robots would enable agroecological and regenerative agricultural practices that will maximise on-farm resources use. 

Other PA technology such as sensors, remote images collected from drones and satellites, Internet of Things (IoT) for resource use efficiency, machine vision, artificial intelligence, etc. could be reengineered and/or developed considering the smallholder context in Bangladesh. For instance, drones could be developed from resources available in Bangladesh and/or if possible recyclable waste available could be used. The development of low-cost drones by school going rural youth and undergraduate students in Bangladesh could be a good example that has already received attention from different media. The inclusion of drones will boost labour and land productivity.

PA technology inclusions in smallholder agriculture of Bangladesh will facilitate achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Research in Europe, Britain, and North America indicates that crop robots and other PA technology reduce costs of production of grain. Profitable commodity and high value crops production with PA technology can help the country to achieve no poverty and zero hunger goals. Agricultural diversification ensures food and nutrition security can also help achieve good health and wellbeing goals. New business models, rural entrepreneurship, and other employment opportunities can help achieving work and economic growth. PA technology is allied with industry innovation and infrastructure goals. The technical and economic feasibility of autonomous agroecological farming and regenerative agriculture can increase soil health, enhance in-field biodiversity, and reduce synthetic chemical use, soil compaction and diseases and pest infestation that are related with climate action and life on land goals. PA technology (e.g., crop robots) using alternative fuels such as solar, electricity, wind, methane and hydrogen, etc. will help in affordable and clean energy goals. 

PA technology inclusions in smallholder agriculture of Bangladesh will facilitate achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 

Seventh-fold prescriptions to move forward

Linking smallholders’ on-farm constraints, potentials of PA technology to bring paradigm shift in smallholder agriculture and macro level visions of Bangladesh, the following prescriptions are suggested to achieve production and environmental goals of crop farming:

First, the government should encourage home country PA technology innovators and agribusinesses to work collaboratively with agricultural and engineering universities to tackle the problem of labour scarcity and farm size and shape geometry. Collaboration should be established with multinational PA technology companies, local and foreign agri-tech start-ups and foreign universities that are doing prototype trials.  

Second, the transitional pathway of Bangladesh to ‘sustainable, safe and profitable agriculture’ should avoid the disruption that would be generated by moving to conventional large-scale mechanisation and instead focus on PA technology to maintain rural landscape, build farm businesses and reinvigorate rural communities. Conventional mechanisation inevitably pushes agriculture toward field and farm enlargement with fewer livelihoods, instead of encouraging a paradigm shift in smallholder agriculture toward social, environmental and economic sustainability. 

Third, the ex-ante scenarios analyses regarding the economics of PA technology can guide the agri-tech economists, engineers, agronomists, environmentalists, agribusinesses innovators, and policy makers and planners. Econometric analysis of observed data will not be feasible here because the PA technology has not yet been marketed and adopted in the smallholder’s context of Bangladesh.

Fourth, after ex-ante economic analyses considering micro and macro level scenarios, Bangladesh should do demonstration trials with prototypes that will guide the policy pathways with evidence-based policy guidelines. The regional peers of Bangladesh such as Thailand, China and Japan already tested autonomous prototypes. 

Fifth, the home agri-tech innovators and agribusinesses should work on the gaps of mechanisation to develop service models because data-driven decision-making will be the future of farming. Both online and off-line services should be promoted to attract all types of customers ranging from youth to aged. The agribusinesses could explore technology export-oriented opportunities because successful innovations from Bangladesh could be used worldwide.

Sixth, Bangladesh should be aware of the PA technology adopted and marketed worldwide that may help her to link with the vision of agriculture, Smart Bangladesh Vision 2041, Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100, Digital Bangladesh, and My Village, My Town. 

Last but not least, Bangladesh should work on policy coordination, regulatory barriers and universal rural broadband connection that will help to facilitate the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), in agriculture known as Agriculture 4.0 and overall development of the country.