Adoption and future perspective of precision farming in Germany: results of several surveys among different agricultural target groups

The adoption of Precision Farming (PF) in Germany has been studied by several mail surveys, telephone interviews and personal interviews with farmers, advisors, teachers and representatives of the PF industry. The intention was to monitor how PF techniques have entered the German market over the years and geographic location. The farmers were interviewed about their experiences with PF technology and their attitudes and barriers towards it. Those farmers who had not yet used PF technologies were asked for the reason and on which condition they would probably start with PF. Although the number of PF users slightly increased between 2001 and 2006, the results of all the surveys indicate that there are still various barriers regarding PF. Those farmers who had already used some PF technologies struggled with many problems at the beginning, but after overcoming these problems, they were generally content with the introduction of PF technologies. However, the majority of the interviewed farmers hesitated to introduce PF techniques mainly because of the high costs of the technology. Most of the interviewed teachers at vocational and technical schools stated that PF was not yet a subject in courses. The interviews with the advisors show that most of them do not offer any advisory service in the field of PF. Finally, the results of the interviews with representatives of the agricultural engineering industry confirm the statements of the other surveys.