Factors influencing the profitability of precision farming systems

The emerging site-specific management (SSM) technologies will allow farmers to manage each parcel of land in a manner consistent with its unique endow ments. The consequence of reducing the scale of land area that is managed u niquely is to substantially reduce the number of cropped acres for which in puts are either over- or under-applied. The potential impart of SSM on farm receipts, variable input costs, and fixed investment costs are explored. T he likely impact of farm size on profitability of SSM adoption also is expl ored a hypothetical case is explored to demonstrate the economic value of v arious components of SSM. Finally, the potential environmental consequences of SSM for society are explored.