Agriculture's Growing Significance as World Population Surges

As the world progresses and the population increases. Agriculture becomes more prominent across the globe. By applying GIS in agriculture, it can benefit those involved in farming. Making the industry boom and have many years of periodic growth. Before there was any type of farming, societies had to gather crops and hunt. If the resources ever diminished they had to continue moving into new places. But with the cultivation of land, it facilitated the situation making it possible for people to settle in one place.

The technology offered can help many societies develop faster food productivity for the required goods on the market. This will prove crucial because with the increase of the populace which is projected to grow to eleven billion by 2100. The growing demand for agricultural products is being driven, in addition to the problem of climate change, agriculture must be always prominent to feed the planet, and GIS has the rights tools for the job. Helping to increase higher productivity of crops, decreasing the use of fertilizer, pesticides and water which in turn keeps prices down.

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With automation becoming more improve as time passes becoming more faster and more efficient. Farmers are adapting to this, and are using machinery like drones, contour mapping, and sensors. They all let a farmer see what crops are more prominent and are able to see this because the technology permits a farmer to view how plants are able to absorb or reflect wavelengths of sunlight. Sensors on drones capture data that helps agriculturists more efficiently know what crops need to be watered.

The same sensors can be put to the likes of tractors that the job to fertilize soil and it will allow them to see what crops are going to require nitrogen. Helping make decisions about what to plant, when to fertilize, and how much to irrigate. While sensors in the ground, that are in-field water detectors can better assist agronomists pinpoint the most prominent time and rates for sectors of irrigation. GPS locators and self-steer programs allows tractors and implements to be more precise and less wasteful in the use of fertilizers, fuel and seeds. Which is a mixture of space and land based information to determine the precise positions of data. This will allow to produce maps which will be useful for decision making. With this fields can be scouted for a variety of pests, and decision tools can be applied on a site specific basis. Completely changing how ranchers oversee their farmland and animals as well. Satellites can identify nutrients and water in soil, like never done before. With further improvements in it, the equipment will ultimately be able to tailor decisions on a meter to meter basis. Sensors combine with genome identifying devices will give rise to a generation of intelligent farming that will be able to respond to its environment, to be able to maximize their food production and at the same time diminishing the negative effects that could happen.Since these technologies require very little human labor, farms are now able to cultivate more acres of land with far less labor; which means they can cut costs even more in the long run by applying it to their fields. GIS makes the process easier, with production and time always being crucial, it helps everything to be delivered to consumers in time. GIS is very functional in traditional map making, to plot things like fire hydrants along a road, or to draw boundaries, like the area of different crop fields on a farm. The real power of it, lies in its ability to analyze multiple data layers. This is where it is growing in need for different applications, such as agriculture. It is a field that will be a major factor in the market and therefore need GIS applications. Examples of layers within the realm of agriculture would be a map showing the number of farm injuries by county, or the number of crop acres lost to flood by tax map parcel. But these are merely simple situations. More complex spatial analyses for agriculture might compare variables like soil type, flood, rainfall amount, disease, elevation to assist crop management, site suitability, erosion, and topography. GIS can help a farmer adapt to these different variables, maximize crop production and monitor the health of individual crops. Geographic Information Systems are incredibly helpful in being able to map and project current and future fluctuation in precipitation as well. By mapping both geologic and geographic features, farmland scientists and farmers can work together to create more effective and efficient farming techniques; this could increaser food production in parts of the world that are struggling to produce enough for the people around them. It can also analyze soil data to figure out where plants should be planted, which are the best, and what are the best circumstances for soil to best benefit plants. USDA is a free public resource that has implemented GIS systems. It uses many variations in each of its sectors to best capture what a department specializes in. The USDA shows the amount, type and location of crops in the United States. By using land use and primary food crop statistics, along with data collected by satellites and mobile devices to identify areas in need and underlying causes of food insecurity. It helps protect crops, solve problems, and give farmers the information that they need.Drones, and satellites are used for remote sensing, which is the gathering of information about the earth's surface by scanning the land from high altitudes. An example of a satellite that does remote sensing is the Landsat eight, it captures 9 bands of the visible light spectrum which can be used to calculate elements like insect infestation, nutrient deficiencies, and plant disease. In addition, it captures thermal infrared radiation. Depending on the surface temperature, the wavelengths emitted by different types of vegetation differ. The data is converted to visible digital imagery and can be applied to general objectives like plant disease detection and managing water. Remote sensing can also be applied to very specific objectives like evaluating maturity of fruits. One of the greatest benefits of remote sensing is that it is not invasive and doesn't impact negative the area being noticed. The powerful analytical capabilities of GIS offer an array of options for visualizing farming conditions, as well as measuring and monitoring the effects of farm management practices. Combined with remote sensing technology, GIS can be used to precisely determine and control inputs, saving preventive expense and reducing the amount of harm to the soil. Simplifying what used to be time consuming multistep processes.Due to fast advancements in technology many farms are becoming more modern, therefore using computers for more work. GIS has a crucial role in the automated field operations, or satellite farming. Because of the information that was gathered from remote sensors, and from sensors mounted directly on farm equipment, farmers have bettered in the abilities to make decisions and in arranging their cultivation. Harvesters equipped with GPS tracking units can measure crop yields along with crop quality values like plant water content and chlorophyll levels in real time and at the exact location in the field from which they are harvested. They can map not only topography and crop health but help solve wider economic issues in municipalities and urban centers that may stem from rural farming practices. Modern technology can help remove pests and target agricultural chemicals better will reduce the overall damage to wildlife, lower resistance and cut costs. Farmers can access the GIS data on their lands; a program called VegSpace and another called CropSpace, it allows farmers to interact with the data without having GIS themselves, ask questions and interact with the data as well as provide valuable on ground data that can't be gathered via satellite.The future implications of GIS are incredible and immense in scope. Farming is getting smarter with the availability of advanced technologies like precision equipment, satellites, drones, sensors, geo-positioning systems. By moving to a more technological geographic based agricultural system people can make crop production significantly more efficient and more sustainable. With the use of technology in the global culture today it is possible that in a couple of years GIS will be a priority use for rural farmers in the developing world to better help them grow crops, produce a good amount of food, and feed their families. A wider range of crops will be grown to meet the increasing demand and will help both in the field and regulate crop storage. In addition, creating more efficient outdoor raising to meet regulatory requirements and higher welfare. This will help meet the necessities of the market, that is ultimately driven by consumers and different trading conditions. More and more farmers would be able to predict what different types of weathers could do to their crops, and therefore act upon it and move to better locations. Learning how to irrigate based on certain weather patterns and the available resources. GIS has many uses, it continues to expand and grow in many fields. It has integrated to many aspects of the modern world. No strategy of economic reform can succeed without a sustained and broad based agricultural development, which is critical for raising living standards, assuring food security and alleviating poverty; making a substantial contribution to the national economic growth. The future growth in agriculture must come from the new technologies, and GIS will continue to make innovations to benefit peoples' daily lives. By applying GIS technology to their operations, agricultural operations can manage resources and responsibilities more efficiently, devise data portals that disseminate vast amounts of agricultural data and interactive maps, and support farming communities.