An overview of precision conservation in Canada

While some precision farming technologies have already been adopted in Canada, the concept of precision conservation presents new opportunities for viewing and analyzing spatial agricultural data. The extreme diversity of agricultural conditions across the country needs to be accounted for and addressed. Landscape analysis is a tool that can be used to facilitate precision conservation. We have documented soil and crop properties related to landforms and are starting to develop stochastic and risk based modeling approaches to better manage agricultural systems. Precision conservation has the potential to facilitate a variety of emerging environmental applications including traceability or identity preservation systems, environmental regulations for farm practices and evaluation of better management practices.