Title: Conservation Agriculture and Precision Agriculture as a Method to Reduce Energy Consumption in Agricultural Systems
Abstract: Climate change (CC) is caused by the increasing concentration of six greenhouse gases. Many studies show how human actions affect CC. Particularly, Carbon dioxide (CO2), which comes from burning fossil fuels, is the gas that has higher concentration in the atmosphere. Agriculture is the third human activity in the amount of CO2 emissions, so actions that reduce the energy consumption in this sector are very interesting. Conservation agriculture (CA), based in the reduction and/or suppression of tillage, and precision agriculture (PA) that allows a more efficient field work, both reduce fuel and input consumption.This work belongs to a European project, Life+ Agricarbon, and it shows the results of one year survey campaign carried out in three farms in southern Spain. In total, 6 experimental fields in each farm. three under conservation agriculture (CA) together with precision agriculture (PA) and three under conventional tillage. Through the instrumentalisation of the machinery used, it is possible to remotely know the fuel consumption and working capacity of each system. In addition, it is feasible to obtain yield maps of crops and other indicators. Results show the significant decrease in the energy consumption with CA system combined with PA, although it is important to remark that the results may vary depending of the crop studied and the different field tasks done on each farm.