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Using precision agriculture to identify overlap in conservation and economic opportunities in agricultural landscapes

Intense agriculture is detrimental to the environment and leads to nutrient runoff, decreased water quality, soil erosion, greenhouse gas emissions, and decreased wildlife habitat. In addition to negative environmental impacts, intense agriculture increases the financial strain on farmers. Farmers also face inconsistent yields from environmentally vulnerable lands. Due to these financial constraints and inconsistent yields, conservation goals are not always economically attractive to farmers and agricultural producers. One possible solution to this issue is the use of precision agriculture (PA) to inform strategic conservation efforts. We used PA technology to identify low-revenue field areas in the Mississippi Delta and Black Prairie regions. We created spatially explicit revenue maps and overlaid it with the Biologist Ranking Index (BRI) to illustrate where economic and conservation opportunities overlap. Our results indicate that, on average, upwards of 20.1% of the Black Prairie and 18.0% of the Mississippi Delta generate less revenue than conservation enrollment.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MSSTATE/oai:scholarsjunction.msstate.edu:td-6237
Date06 August 2021
CreatorsBrister, Makayla
PublisherScholars Junction
Source SetsMississippi State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceTheses and Dissertations

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