DIGITAL FARMING PRACTICES AND CHANGES IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY OVER TIME
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53555/gafs.v12i1.2577Keywords:
Digital farming, Precision agriculture, Agricultural productivity, Corn yield, Technology adoptionAbstract
Digital farming is increasingly transforming agricultural production through precision technologies that support data-driven management and resource allocation. This study examined temporal changes in digital farming practices and their associations with agricultural productivity in U.S. corn production between 1996 and 2010. Precision-agriculture indicators were integrated with annual corn grain yield observations across matched years. Digital farming was characterized using precision agriculture, yield monitoring, yield mapping, GPS-based soil mapping, variable-rate technologies, and automated guidance systems. Temporal trends, Pearson and Spearman correlations, and parsimonious regression models were applied, alongside a composite Digital Farming Adoption Index. Precision-agriculture use increased from 17.29% of planted corn acres in 1997 to 72.47% in 2010, while yield-monitor use increased from 17.29% to 61.41%. Corn productivity increased by 20.1%, from 127.1 to 152.6 bu/acre. Precision-agriculture adoption was strongly associated with yield (r = 0.953, p < 0.001), while the Digital Farming Adoption Index also showed a significant positive association with productivity (r = 0.842, p = 0.035). Short-term changes in digital adoption were not significantly associated with corresponding yield changes. The findings demonstrate parallel long-term increases in agricultural digitalization and corn productivity while emphasizing the need for farm-level longitudinal evidence to establish causal effects.
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