The acceleration of Digital Agriculture is evident through the increased adoption of digital technologies on farms including smart machines, sensors and cloud computing. In this paper we present the preliminary results of the research project funded by Università Politecnica delle Marche in 2018 “PFRLab: Setting of a precision farming robotic laboratory for cropping system sustainability and food safety and security”, which is still underway. In this context, as first result, an interdepartmental Research and Services Center called “Smart Farming” has been set up with the aim to strengthen multidisciplinary collaborations in the fields of Agriculture and Forestry, Geomatics, ICT and Robotics. Regarding field activities the SPAD 502 as well as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) provide a good estimate of the Chlorophylla+b content in durum wheat leaves so can be used to predict in a quickly and non-destructively way, the crop greenness status and to identify any nutritional deficiencies in real time. Future research activities are certainly needed to fully explore the potentialities of conservation agriculture and precision farming, and to drive the transition process from conventional agriculture to modern conservation agriculture and precision farming techniques. In-depth studies are planned on the combined effect of nitrogen fertilization and soil management on the main production variables of durum wheat in order to evaluate whether specific tools for precision agriculture applications can find significant diffusion even in Mediterranean cereal based cropping systems.

Starting from the twenty-first century, the digital paradigm has brought with it a new way of thinking about innovation within the firms through the introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Information and Communications Technology (ICT), keys factors of digital transformation technologies. In addition, the use of Precision Agriculture (PA) has created a new approach to farming practices, allowing farmers to reduce the inputs, while protecting natural resources. Today, also in Italy PA is starting to be an effective technological innovation potentially capable to improve farms efficiency and sustainability. Given these considerations, the present paper aims, firstly, to review the factors more affect the adoption of precision agriculture technologies (PATs); secondly, to investigate where the PATs could be convenient to apply in Italy. A multi-Criteria Decision Analysis method is performed to achieve this goal. The analysis shows that the geographical area more likely to use PATs in Italy is the North East territory. However, in Italy, the adoption of these technologies in agriculture meets various obstacles: the cultural barrier to innovation and a limited awareness of benefits; the reduced average size of farms, with the difficulty of investing in and appreciating the benefits of PATs.

Today, precision agriculture technologies (PATs) can be considered a tool for the management of the farm which allows the agricultural entrepreneur to optimise inputs, reduce costs, and offer the best quantitative and qualitative agricultural products. In Italy, the number of digital farmers is still low; therefore, it is not yet possible to assess with certainty the actual economic benefits that technologies bring to the farm. To bridge this gap, the paper proposes, through the analysis of a case study, an assessment of the economic efficiency of an Italian cereal farm that has invested in precision agriculture. The results reveal that, unlike what is reported in the literature, after the technological adoption, the farm keeps both the yield and variable costs stable. However, the major benefit is recorded in the decrease in labour costs (−20%) and in the reduction of pesticides (−53%). The increase in the quantity of nitrogen (+11%) and of seed distributed in the field (+5%) indicates that, in the face of a significant increase in total costs due to the capital invested in technology, the farm aims to intensify production rather than reduce agricultural inputs.

No abstract

<p class="Abstract">Precision agriculture (PA) offers the opportunity for farmers to improve both efficiency in managing resources and optimisation of process inputs, thus increasing their whole farm’s profitability. Despite these well-known benefits, the adoption of PA technologies (PATs) is still challenging due to socio-economic barriers and unique characteristics of the farms: cropping systems, technical developments, field sizes and farm scale. The economic aspect is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects to consider before adopting PATs. In most of the cases, farmers are reluctant to introduce precision farming systems since the costs and uncertainty about the profitability and advantages need to be addressed. This study aims to explore how PATs could affect the profitability of a representative Italian farm specialising in the production of cereals, making this a case study. In detail, an economic analysis was applied to determine the profitability of the farm, which showed that the adoption of PAT’s increased the yield of durum and soft wheat and significantly reduced the cost of mechanical operations and technical means. Therefore, the potential gains from the adoption of PATs challenges policymakers to design targeted interventions which could encourage their uptake. This paper is an extended version of the original contribution presented to the 2019 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Agriculture and Forestry (MetroAgriFor) in Portici, Italy.</p>