What is the difference between traditional and modern farming?
Agricultural systems in various parts of the world have evolved due to technological advances and increasing human knowledge. It develops from primitive agriculture, traditional agriculture to modern agriculture. At that time, hunting and gathering activities are familiar techniques for humans. Conventional agriculture started since humans began to settle and cultivate in one location. This agricultural system is a straightforward farm model that is extensive and does not maximize inputs such as technology, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. As the pressures of globalization and modernization intensify over time, traditional farming practices and knowledge are becoming obsolete. As the environment destabilizes each year, conventional farming or livestock farming becomes less reliable over time. It is common knowledge that traditional farming or farming methods are dependent on many external conditions to ensure profitability. Therefore, farmers began to implement precision agriculture to make farming more effective. Before adopting precision farming, farmers must know the principles of precision agriculture.
The principles of precision agriculture
In this century, technology is an essential point for any sector. Precision agriculture adopts the development technology and combines it with an agricultural core value. A farming system must meet the basic principles, which generally adopt the basic principles of sustainable development. The following are principles of precision agriculture:
- Precision agriculture can do improving soil management and crop rotation while maintaining soil quality and water availability to maintain agricultural production in the long term.
- Sustainable agriculture can protect, recycle, replace, and maintain the natural resource base such as soil, water, and biodiversity, contributing to the protection of natural capital.
Some of you already wondered,'how can I differentiate conventional and smart farming today?'. Answering this question, you can see it from several perspectives. To illustrate, let's see the differences between traditional and modern farming and how it changes.
Result
In traditional agriculture, the concept is only to yield or harvest. In contrast, modern agriculture already has the idea of pursuing profit or loss. It has applied the idea of the economy to produce a commodity it requires capital costs with predictable profits and analyzes the feasibility of a business you run.
The traditional farming system focuses on the food needs of farmers, so it is not suitable to meet the needs of an increasing number of people. Nevertheless, modern agriculture focuses on efforts to meet human food needs and species breeding agriculture, aiming to optimize farming to produce quality food.
Tools
Loosen the soil
The plow is one of the most outstanding examples of traditional farming tools and one of the oldest domestic farming implements. Cows, buffaloes, or horses primarily draw it, and they are the first animals for doing plow. The plows were first time used in prehistoric times. Initially, wood was the material for making the plow. Today, there is a cultivator. Its primary use is for soil cultivation. As we all know, most farmers use this to control weeds before planting. Besides, a cultipacker is placed behind a tractor to pull seedbeds before seed planting for a better connection with seed to soil.
Spraying
Spraying activities need a pesticide sprayer. Some are still traditional, and some are following advanced technology. The following is a pesticide sprayer for conventional and modern farming systems.
Knapsack manual sprayer is a sprayer that works manually by relying on hand power which then produces air pressure. The word knapsack is a backpack. It is carried on the back to use.
A hand sprayer is a portable sprayer that operates by pumping by hand. This hand sprayer is not only for spraying pesticides for agricultural needs and gardening (urban farming) but also for spraying foliar fertilizers or just for watering plants.
A tractor sprayer is a modern spraying machine. It sprays by carrying an agro chem machine and tank at the back of the tractor. So the function of the tractor is to take and move the machine then direct it to the crop to be sprayed with agro chem or pesticide.
Another modern spraying for precision agriculture system is a drone sprayer. At the bottom of the drone, there is a pesticide holding tank. The drone operates with operators. They control the drone's flying speed and direction and turn on the sprayer. This drone sprayer can spray faster, save water, and be more effective than manual work. It is often not on target when spreading, so there is a lot of wasted pesticide.
Cropping system
Traditional agriculture will usually depend more on nature, so their agriculture can be arid during the dry season, unlike modern agriculture, which has carried out irrigation engineering such as dams, irrigation, etc. Indeed, it affects the types of crops in the field.
Traditional agriculture uses a monoculture cropping system. Single planting or monoculture is cultivating on agricultural land by planting one plant in one area. Monoculture is a straightforward farming system. It mainly includes soil preparation, irrigation, and chemicals when needed, all of which focus on the preferences of a particular plant. Pests and diseases treat without considering the effects of the treatment on other plants that are not present.
On the contrary, precision agriculture uses diversified cropping systems. It is an effort to diversify the type of business or crops to avoid dependence on one agricultural product. In addition to fulfilling crop production, diversification can also help maintain agricultural land to remain productive. Two ways can do for agricultural diversification. First, increase the types of farming activities, and second, grow the types of plants on land.
To conclude, you can still adopt conventional farming in small business sizes or only for your business. This method can be more affordable than modern farming. Yet, contemporary farming is more effective for big companies since it has supported tools to make work easier and faster
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