ROLE OF PRECISION AGRICULTURE TECHNOLOGIES IN IMPROVING CROP PRODUCTIVITY AND FARM PROFITABILITY IN INDIA: A NARRATIVE-INTEGRATIVE REVIEW

Abstract

Precision agriculture (PA) is a crop-management methodology that incorporates various tools at the intersection of time, space, and market intervention. Its importance in a country like India stems from the fact that fragmented holdings, coupled with labor and climatic challenges, entail the need for greater productivity and profitability of crops. The main issue is that most studies have approached PA from either the agronomics or the economics perspectives, while there exists very limited integrative evidence on smallholder Indian farm systems. This paper investigates the crop-science and economic elements of PA and devises structures aimed at enhancing the productivity of crops and profitability of farms among Indian smallholder farmers. A narrative-integrative review framework was employed for this study. The review was based on extensive research of literature published from 1997 to 2026, consisting of 60 documents of peer reviewed articles, reviews, and formal institutional papers related to precision agriculture and its various subordinate fields on Scopus, Indian and ICAR sites, and other cited portals of research publications. The study outlines the functionalities of PA in managing nutrients and water, as well as the surveillance of crop health, yield prediction, and timely evaluation of crop stress. India's smallholder farmers benefit more from FPO and custom-hiring support models than from individual technology ownership. Among smallholder farmers, service-based Precision Agriculture (PA) adoption outperforms individual technology ownership. Profitability for smallholder farmers can be attributed to the value of services delivered, and custom hiring and Farming Producer Organization (FPO) support