Precision Agriculture Technologies and Farm Profitability

This paper uses the staggered difference-in-difference model to assess the ex post impact of precision agriculture (PA) technology adoption on whole-farm profitability. The results indicate that PA technologies do not contribute as much to farm profitability when analyzed over a period of time. PA technologies may increase some operational efficiency, but farmers should not adopt PA assuming that it will improve farm profitability. The positive contribution of a majority of PA technologies to farm profitability has not yet been established.