Recently, I was in a debate with a friend who seems to carry a negative impression on the use of technology to automate traditional farming practices. As I went deeper into the conversation, I realized that his arguments were specifically targeting the application of drones that promises to monitor agricultural farms by generating humongous amount of data. According to him, only humans are a best fit to be tasked with crop monitoring or site-specific application. Unlike machines or robots, humans can be relied for smart decision-making ability in the real-world scenario. As a counter reasoning, I presented my perspective on how present technologies are shaping the future of farming without disrupting the environment or rather in several cases they are smarter and faster in accomplishing tasks that demands automation due to its repetitive nature.

Back in the early 1980s, the founding principle behind developing Precision Agriculture (PA) tech- nologies hinged on the fact that these technologies will be engineered to make farming practices more accurate and controlled when raising livestock or growing/monitoring crops. This principle in itself was so objective that engineers had to think and design technologies that could treat areas based on three significant factors: right location, right amount, and right time. To accomplish all the 3R’s, a computer decision making systems was supposed to be designed that would imitate humans in terms of making decisions on-the-go. It was in the late 1990s, a tech giant named John Deere ventured into this area and developed the first GPS-guided tractor that fetched coordinates of a location to guide tractors on farms. A 15,000 lbs machine was now able to make sense where it was exactly in the field. This technology was widely adopted by farmers that ultimately led to the rise of PA. Today, PA is booming with varied areas of research conducted across numerous universities and industries. What seemed impossible 50 years back is now made possible due to advancements made in deploying agricultural robots for planting, harvesting, weeding, spraying, etc. Thanks to advanced technologies like, Deep Learning, Computer Vision, and Motor Control approaches. A decade back on one would have imagined a flying saucer (drones at 32 ft altitude) that could be used to classify weeds amongst crop plants and subsequently spray herbicide as needed. With the help of complex designed sensors, crop yield and various soil properties can be estimated eliminating the need to perform traditional and arduous laboratory analysis. Application of cutting-edge technologies such as, cloud or edge-based computing is helping farmers know the status of their crops on-the-go. In short, this is exactly where the PA is headed towards in the near future.

My personal take on the future of PA science and technology is this: I believe that PA is a con- glomeration of various other engineering and science discipline applied on an agronomic field. It uses the skillset from computer science for designing intelligent algorithms, complex sensors from electrical engineering domain, actuating a nozzle for spraying mechanism from mechatronics en- gineering, and the list could be added. My goal as a researcher who aspires to work closely with the PA domain in the future is to continuously think and innovate PA technology by learning skillset from various engineering discipline. As an agricultural engineer, my goal is not to eliminate humans with robots but to make their work easier by helping them collaborate with technology through automation. By doing this, I perceive that technologies like drones can favor in assisting farmers in making smart decision through big data and not disrupt the environment.