Agricultural landscapes face increased societal pressure to meet global food demands while simultaneously providing ecosystem services.  Increased use of agricultural chemicals is expected in order to meet global yield objectives and reduce risk.  However, increased use of agro-chemicals poses significant risk to ecosystem function and sustainability.  Natural plant communities, as a component of agricultural landscapes, can mitigate this risk and support ecosystem function by providing essential ecosystem services with broad societal value (i.e., pollination, beneficial insects, wildlife populations).  Sustainability of global agricultural systems will require greater focus on strategic integration of conservation practices into production agricultural systems to protect and enhance ecosystem services and crop production. However, balancing these objectives creates challenges for producers as the allocation of land to non-crop uses (e.g., natural plant communities) entails economic opportunity costs for producers. Agricultural producers will implement conservation actions provided the economic incentives are equal to or greater than traditional farming. Therefore, it is essential for natural resource professionals to help producers identify and understand the economic opportunities of conservation implementation. Precision agriculture technology provides a unique framework for identifying economic and conservation opportunities in production agriculture.  By using precision agriculture in a conservation framework, natural resource professionals can demonstrate the overlap between conservation eligibility and economic opportunity. I illustrate the application of this technology to create natural plant communities in production agricultural landscapes that increase field-level profitability, wildlife populations, and ecosystem services. This approach could easily be used to increase the use, efficiency, and profitability of vegetation filter strips to reduce pesticide movement in the environment.<br/>

Creating environmentally resilient agriculture landscapes using precision agriculture technology: An economic perspective

256th National Meeting (2018)

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