A microeconomic perspective on the value of OFPE data in management zone delineation

David S. Bullock, Britanni Edge and Taro Mieno

No 344213, Agri-Tech Economics Papers from Harper Adams University, Land, Farm & Agribusiness Management Department

Abstract: Precision agriculture researchers began investigating "management zone" (MZ) delineation as variable-rate technology emerged in commercial markets in the 1990s. A large part of that research has focused pm questions about what clustering or delineation methods should be used on past yield data and spatial field and soil characteristics data to delineate MZs. The literature’s MZ delineation methods have grown in complexity over the years, but several widespread flaws in this literature persist. Using microeconomic theory to define MZs, we show that creating MZs for a generic input is suboptimal as the input type, management decisions, and zones are fundamentally connected. Specifically, a profitable MZ delineation requires a selected managed input and sufficient knowledge about site-specific yield response functions, and in particular marginal yield response to input application rates, which can only be estimated with data from on-farm precision experiments (OFPEs). Thus, OFPE is vital for the proper establishment of MZs.

Keywords: Environmental Economics and Policy; Farm Management; Land Economics/Use; Productivity Analysis; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 8
Date: 2023-09-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:haaepa:344213

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.344213

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