Quality of Life Impacts of Adopting Precision Agriculture Technology on Cotton Farmers

This presentation will discuss how global positioning systems (GPS) enabled navigation technologies such as lightbars and automated guidance impacts elderly and disabled cotton farmers.  The presentation examines several health risk behaviors among farm equipment operators and how GPS-enabled navigation technology affects their quality-of-life including farm safety and injury incidence, satisfaction regarding production, management, and efficiency of farming, and the health, quality-of-life and family/farm business dynamics.  Through anecdotal evidence from several Arkansas farmers, farm equipment operators, and agricultural service providers, we have observed the intangible outcomes from GPS guidance among farm equipment operators and how the technology improved their quality of life. For example, one aging farmer suffering from neck and shoulder problems operated equipment for several more years with GPS guidance.