Does Precision Agriculture Help or Hurt USA’s Small Farmers? Ryan Jones

Overview & Definitions Hobby Farms $1,000-$9,999 from ag products sold Medium Farms $10,000-$99,999 Larger Farms >$100,000 - NASS/USDA

Overview & Definition (cont.) $10,000-$99,999 economic class Farms decreased 1.2% All Farms # Farms decreased 1.99% since 1993 Ave. Farm size ~435 acres past 5 years -NASS/USDA 2002

Todays Farmers Oklahoma average age is 55 Little to no college Pretty well set in ways

Land Grant Colleges Developed to help our farmers Now leaning toward research and not instructing Some farmers just don’t have the resources to adopt new technologies

Economics Some costs fixed Equipment, software, maps, etc. Some costs variable Fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, etc.

Economics (cont.) Fixed costs not used in decision process Fixed costs spread over farm on a per acre basis Larger farms can justify more expensive fixed costs (Economies of Size) Results in smaller farmers getting shafted

Economics (cont.) Variable costs used in decision process because by definition, they affect output Very important because most farmers working with such small profit margin Small increases or decreases have dramatic affects

Some Equipment

Cost Analysis

Questions We Need To Ask Is this going to be beneficial – Short Run – Long Run Who will benefit Should we even worry about small farmers