Precision agriculture (PA), which leverages cutting-edge IT, sensing, and machinery systems, is expected to bring about a transformation in agriculture. The world’s population is continuously growing, and the demand for crops remains high, but there is a limited supply of new farmland. Increasing yields and improving profitability are common challenges faced by farmers around the world. Technologies that can reduce costs without lowering yields have long been in demand.

The U.S. and EU have long supported the development of PA, placing high expectations on its potential. PA could manage crop growth by analyzing heterogeneous sensing data streams from satellite, in-field, and agricultural machinery and predict both yields and crop quality. PA gained remarkable attention from large producers in the U.S. and Europe in the early 1990s, and after a quarter of a century, certain components of PA technology have been implemented and are contributing to improved labor efficiency. The once-envisioned future of technology-led agriculture is slowly but steadily taking shape in the real world.