A). The glaring issue with today’s agriculture is summed up in three words, “Environmentally Sustainable Agriculture” and how these three needs can all co-exist. When talking about sustainability, all affect and are affected by each other; some balance among them is necessary for agriculture to be truly viable. Sustainability is broken up into Environmental, Economic and Social sustainability. The issue that these three face is being balanced with one another. When finding a solution to benefit one you end up harming another. For example with the growing population in the world, production gets increased with the use of chemical fertilizers. However these chemicals can leave residue in the soil and affect water run offs. These issues become a typical disaster to the social sustainability of farmers and also have a factor in the economic sustainability due to the population not purchasing the farmers products.
The issue in my article is whether or not farmers are willing to accept the agricultural technology push that is occurring. To keep up with the growing population and demand for certain products these farmers must be efficient. But do they want GPS powered machines operating their farm leaving their employees with no work? The issue becomes are the farmers ready to let go and accept the new wave of technology in agriculture.
B). The research topic I chose was “changing agricultural technology”. The article I found illustrates the new wave of technology being brought in to the agricultural world. These new high-tech system offer farmers, tractors that operate with no driver. The goal with this technology is to one day conduct business and control production without human labor. Satellites displaying automatic steering systems now guide these new tractors. This new technology was displayed at the Kansas Precision Agriculture Field Day. This is helping drive more effectively and efficiently on a designed path ensuring overlap and skipped areas to reduce use of chemicals, fuel and time. With this upgrade it allows for quick feedback to the operators through satellite. To reach maximum production anything that can be done to increase productivity will help improve the bottom line. This allows for farmers to operate their system in conditions that used to be challenging. GPS systems can provide information for light bars; yield monitors, data loggers and other equipment. With using this system you then become more accurate, precise and efficient with this growing population and technological up rise.
C). Author: Lucas Shivers, is a volunteer at the University of Kansas agriculture filed department. He is also and elementary school teacher. He has been