Evaluation of farmer’s perception of precision agriculture: A case study in the municipality of Guaíba, Rio Grande do Sul state

Avaliação da percepção do agricultor sobre a agricultura de precisão: Um estudo de caso no município de Guaíba, Rio Grande do Sul

ABSTRACT

Purpose:

The main objective of the work was to investigate the perception of rural producers in the municipality of Guaíba, Rio Grande do Sul state, in relation to the implementation of precision agriculture (PA), in order to verify the difficulties and benefits of the implementation of this practice in rural life.

Originality/value:

PA technology is increasingly present in the planting process, enabling productivity improvement, lower environmental impact, and rural development, an area of fundamental economic importance for the country. Understanding the perception of the farmers in relation to PA can generate important insights, allowing for successful implementations of that technology.

Design/methodology/approach:

The research was carried out based on semi-structured interviews. Thus, information was obtained on the perceptions of each farmer in the face of digital transformation in the field and the obstacles encountered in the practices of such technology. Data collection was carried out with five farmers in the municipality of Guaíba. Subsequently, the data were analyzed using the content analysis technique, in its variant of propositional discourse analysis.

Findings:

The results show that, despite all the technological apparatus, there are challenges to be overcome in the face of the implementation of digital agriculture. Among the difficulties mentioned, the complexity of the systems – a fact not yet reported in theory –, lack of qualified personnel, cost of machinery, dependence on the climate, and difficulties in accessing the internet stand out. Benefits of the implementation of PA were also pointed out, such as the lower use of inputs, the better harvest yield, the improvement in the farmer’s technical knowledge, and the possibility of adapting the existing machinery, which, contradictorily, was also pointed out as being a difficulty.

Keywords:
precision agriculture; innovation in the field; rural development; difficulties in implementing PA; benefits of implementing PA