Agriculture provides fundamental resources for survival and the development of civilization. Moreover, current technological advancements such as the Green Revolution saw the rise of pesticide and chemical usage are revolutionizing every aspect of agriculture. This offers the opportunity for agriculture to embrace technology and increase crop productivity. In recent decades, agricultural digital technology like remote sensing emerged as a tool to boost the process of crop production. It would become more widely influential with appropriate improvements.

Argentina stands as one of the most significant countries in the world where agriculture is a dominant industry. Crop productivity significantly contributes to global food security, income raises, and poverty reduction. Therefore, inefficient crop production may potentially lead to issues like food insecurity and economic market failure, especially under adverse climate conditions. For example, between 2009 and 2018, Argentina confronted more than 269 drought- or flood-related events, losing nearly US$20 billion. Since then, Argentina has embraced the development of technological innovations like remote sensing. This involves methods and techniques used to collect and analyze information about farmland and crop production. Remote sensing allows for improved cropland monitoring and convenient information access, subsequently reducing inputs and increasing productivity. Currently, about 10 percent of large- scale agricultural producers, occupying 78 percent of the land, employ remote sensing. Despite its benefits, years of remote sensing application reveal potential issues, such as lack of instruction and inadequate data analysis. These factors contribute to explaining limited remote sensing and uncertainties about future adoption. Most importantly, the future application of remote sensing in Argentina requires more comprehensive education about computational
technology for farmers. This will allow the technology to reshape agriculture into a more effective industry, helping farmers better manage the use of resources and mitigate negative consequences, especially when confronting extreme weather conditions.

Agriculture’s Significance in Argentina: Advocating for Remote Sensing

Argentina is a primary exporter of agricultural products. Eight percent of its gross domestic production stems from crop production, and agricultural products account for more than half of the national total exports. Additionally, agriculture-related jobs account for nearly eight percent of the national employment. Therefore, innovations in the field of agriculture will vitally influence Argentina’s future economic development. Given this significance, both the Argentine government and farmers have already adopted several advanced technologies in practice.

The influence of digital technology in Argentina’s agricultural sector has notably increased, with more than 54 digital technology companies developing high-tech agricultural applications. In 2017, Argentina passed the Entrepreneur’s Law to encourage innovation and investment in companies producing advanced remote sensing technology. Remote sensing technology is a representative modern diagnostic tool applicable to crop production. It can provide farmers with early warning for emerging issues like soil pollution. Farmers can also use this technology to monitor land use, observe natural phenomena, and assess crop health. These capabilities are necessary when dealing with changing climates and natural disasters. For instance, central San Luis Province in Argentina suffered from desertification, which was observed in the area for several decades. In the 1990s, researchers utilized satellite remote sensing analysis to monitor dune movement, re-vegetation trends, and water body variations due
to changes in precipitation. With the help of remote sensing, the mechanism of degradation in San Luis Province was better revealed and could be therefore adopted in governance plans to prevent future desertification.

Challenges to Remote Sensing Adoption

While the advent of remote sensing technology and its current application reveals great potential to increase agricultural productivity, the adoption of this technology brings out several issues as well. Even though farmers can get access to data conducted by remote sensing, it would be challenging for them to comprehend and apply complex data without any expertise in data analysis. Troubles in analyzing relevant data like irrigation maps or fertilizer solubility may undermine the support of remote sensing to agriculture.

Another emerging issue with current remote sensing technology is its lack of accuracy and integration. When adopting remote sensing in the real world, plenty of factors affect the output, including image resolutions, climate conditions, and methods of analysis. Additionally, without an integrated method to analyze data, a challenge is posed for coordinating various tools. For instance, in Argentina, many AgTech companies offer services that transpose precise data collection into descriptive figures, which could be beneficial to local farmers lacking expertise in data analysis. But for the intense soybean field in the pampas, large-scale producers hope to get more accurate and detailed data, rather than charts and figures. This inconsistency between analysis methods will be challenging and costly for remote sensing operators to obtain precise information and draw conclusions from diverse situations.

Proposed Solutions to Remote Sensing Challenges
Argentina should contemplate the potential solutions to issues posed by remote sensing. Given that the Argentine government has already levied distortionary taxes on agricultural export products such as soybeans, it could provide instruction for farmers to ease the understanding of remote sensing operation. In 2021, NASA Harvest and the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange together held a training program in which agricultural professionals were taught how to access and analyze images produced by remote sensing technology. Similar educational programs are on track in high schools in Argentina, where students receive the curriculum of using tools to analyze Earth Observation data in agriculture. Likewise, these lessons programs could be expanded to include farmers directly, who are at the forefront of cultivation. To address inconsistencies in remote sensing, a standardized workflow for information sharing and uniformed tools is essential. Thus, the government could consider expanding investment in fundamental scientific research and AgTech companies to design multipurpose technology.

Innovative remote sensing in modern agriculture should boost the efficiency of production and yields, but only under appropriate adoption and support from both farmers and the government. Particularly, as the global climate becomes more unpredictable, the question of how people can better understand and utilize remote sensing is of utmost importance. Additionally, improving remote sensing can expand its influence on addressing global topics such as growing population versus food insecurity, sustainable source management versus extreme climate conditions, all while protecting farmers’ livelihood versus economic loss due to climate disasters like droughts.