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UniversalMomentum t1_ixm63hx wrote

Precision targeted watering and pesticides look like a good start to make passive gains in agricultural efficiency.

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ghandi3737 t1_ixmoye3 wrote

It's only good for the big agribusinesses who can afford it.

Most of the farmers in my area are just barely scraping by and many have left, retired or passed away. None of them have the money to pay for this let alone paying to take a tractor into the dealer just to reset the computer for a broken belt they can fix themselves, at a cost of several thousand dollars just to get it towed in.

This is definitely needed, but they need to help the small farmers and preferably tell the big agribusinesses to pay for it themselves.

They need the right to repair, they need the right to collect the seed from the plants they grow, they need to tell monsanto and any other company trying to patent genetics to fuck off.

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Jaker788 t1_ixp9xb4 wrote

Even if farmers had rights to seeds, barely any if any farmers have bothered to collect seeds anyway. It's not worth the effort for the cost of seeds

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Seen_Unseen t1_ixpiq23 wrote

Pesticides / fertilizer already happens precision based. My family are large scale farmers (in Europe) and the machines already adjust real time the need for pesticides as well fertilizer based upon visual and historical data. I never asked about water but I would be surprised that this isn't a thing.

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