Gps affirmative

***Precision Agriculture

**Small Farms Add-On

GPS enhances precision agriculture – reduces pesticide use, increases yield, and allows smaller farms to preserve accurate and productive methods for farming in the face of large scale farm operations

GPS.gov ‘12

(http://www.gps.gov/applications/agriculture/ The National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing maintains the contents of GPS.gov on behalf of the U.S. government. Feb 17, 2012 Accessed: 6-28-12)

Precision agriculture is now changing the way farmers and agribusinesses view the land from which they reap their profits. Precision agriculture is about collecting timely geospatial information on soil-plant-animal requirements and prescribing and applying site-specific treatments to increase agricultural production and protect the environment. Where farmers may have once treated their fields uniformly, they are now seeing benefits from micromanaging their fields. Precision agriculture is gaining in popularity largely due to the introduction of high technology tools into the agricultural community that are more accurate, cost effective, and user friendly. Many of the new innovations rely on the integration of on-board computers, data collection sensors, and GPS time and position reference systems. Many believe that the benefits of precision agriculture can only be realized on large farms with huge capital investments and experience with information technologies. Such is not the case. There are inexpensive and easy-to-use methods and techniques that can be developed for use by all farmers. Through the use of GPS, GIS, and remote sensing, information needed for improving land and water use can be collected. Farmers can achieve additional benefits by combining better utilization of fertilizers and other soil amendments, determining the economic threshold for treating pest and weed infestations, and protecting the natural resources for future use. Farm equipment tending precisely contoured rows of crops GPS equipment manufacturers have developed several tools to help farmers and agribusinesses become more productive and efficient in their precision farming activities. Today, many farmers use GPS-derived products to enhance operations in their farming businesses. Location information is collected by GPS receivers for mapping field boundaries, roads, irrigation systems, and problem areas in crops such as weeds or disease. The accuracy of GPS allows farmers to create farm maps with precise acreage for field areas, road locations and distances between points of interest. GPS allows farmers to accurately navigate to specific locations in the field, year after year, to collect soil samples or monitor crop conditions. Crop advisors use rugged data collection devices with GPS for accurate positioning to map pest, insect, and weed infestations in the field. Pest problem areas in crops can be pinpointed and mapped for future management decisions and input recommendations. The same field data can also be used by aircraft sprayers, enabling accurate swathing of fields without use of human “flaggers” to guide them. Crop dusters equipped with GPS are able to fly accurate swaths over the field, applying chemicals only where needed, minimizing chemical drift, reducing the amount of chemicals needed, thereby benefiting the environment. GPS also allows pilots to provide farmers with accurate maps. Farmers and agriculture service providers can expect even further improvements as GPS continues to modernize. In addition to the current civilian service provided by GPS, the United States is committed to implementing a second and a third civil signal on GPS satellites. The first satellite with the second civilian signal was launched in 2005. The new signals will enhance both the quality and efficiency of agricultural operations in the future.

Small farms face significant risks – collapse would result in the US depending on other nations for food

Scholl ‘11

[Jon, President of American Farmland Trust, Roll Call, October 27]

Our nation faces severe economic times. Tens of millions of people are receiving food assistance. Millions of people are out of work. Many people often ask, "Why do farmers need a farm safety net?"

We agree that our farm policy is in need of reform. Farm support programs are in many ways broken, serving neither farmers nor taxpayers well. However, to suggest that we don't need a farm safety net would be a true folly.

Modern agriculture involves more science and precision than most Americans understand, but we still find it difficult to manage major forces beyond our control that affect our ability to survive. Droughts, floods and global political changes can place us on the brink of bankruptcy in an instant.

While we acknowledge that the overall farm economy has recently been a bright spot in the U.S. economy, we remember too well the examples in our history where economic strength was followed by severe and painful economic hardship. One needs only to look back to the mid-1990s when the Asian financial crisis caused commodity prices to collapse and farm livelihoods to be placed in severe jeopardy.

Failure to adequately assist farmers and ranchers in managing risks they have no other option to protect themselves from will, at best, invite dramatic consolidation of farms and, at worst, make American citizens dependent upon foreign countries for food just as we depend on others for oil. For nearly a hundred years, American public policy has believed that the health of agriculture is important and affects our national security - especially if we want to feed and clothe ourselves.

Billions die

Julian Cribb, principal of JCA, fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, 2010, The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It, http://books.google.com/books?id=Tv0zXxbQ7toC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+coming+famine&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RR_mT7OYFKeq2gXP5tHZCQ&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20coming%20famine&f=false, CMR
The character of human conflict has also changed: since the early 1990S, more wars have been triggered by disputes over food, land, and water than over mere political or ethnic differences. This should not surprise US: people have fought over the means of survival for most of history. But in the abbreviated reports on the nightly media, and even in the rarefied realms of government policy, the focus is almost invariably on the players—the warring national, ethnic, or religious factions—rather than on the play, the deeper subplots building the tensions that ignite conflict. Caught up in these are groups of ordinary, desperate people fearful that there is no longer sufficient food, land, and water to feed their children—and believing that they must fight ‘the others” to secure them. At the same time, the number of refugees in the world doubled, many of them escaping from conflicts and famines precipitated by food and resource shortages. Governments in troubled regions tottered and fell. The coming famine is planetary because it involves both the immediate effects of hunger on directly affected populations in heavily populated regions of the world in the next forty years—and also the impacts of war, government failure, refugee crises, shortages, and food price spikes that will affect all human beings, no matter who they are or where they live. It is an emergency because unless it is solved, billions will experience great hardship, and not only in the poorer regions. Mike Murphy, one of the world’s most progressive dairy farmers, with operations in Ireland, New Zealand, and North and South America, succinctly summed it all up: “Global warming gets all the publicity but the real imminent threat to the human race is starvation on a massive scale. Taking a 10—30 year view, I believe that food shortages, famine and huge social unrest are probably the greatest threat the human race has ever faced. I believe future food shortages are a far bigger world threat than global warming.”2° The coming famine is also complex, because it is driven not by one or two, or even a half dozen, factors but rather by the confluence of many large and profoundly intractable causes that tend to amplify one another. This means that it cannot easily be remedied by “silver bullets” in the form of technology, subsidies, or single-country policy changes, because of the synergetic character of the things that power it.

Small farms are the lynchpins to ecological diversity.

Griffin ‘6

[Keith B. Griffin, James K. Boyce, Stephen Cullenberg, Prasanta K. Pattanaik. Human Development in the Era of Globalization. 2006. page 95.]

Insofar as agricultural modernization triggers displacement of small farmers, it undermines the social basis for agricultural biodiversity. To be sure, new technologies can lead to genetic erosion on small farms, independently of changes in the agrarian structure, if small farmers themselves decide to replace numerous local varieties with fewer new ones. As noted above however, it is possible for traditional crop varieties and farming practices to coexist with new ones. Indeed one can imagine situation where the introduction of new varieties enhances diversity rather than diminishing it. The impact of ‘modernization’ on agricultural biodiversity hinges, in no small measure, on how it affects the livelihood security of small farmers. As the small farmer goes, so goes diversity.

Loss of biodiversity threatens the 6^th mass extinction.

Dimas ‘6

[Stavros 1977-2004: Member of the Greek Parliament representing the party of New Democracy 1977: Member of the negotiating committee for the accession of Greece to the EEC 1977-1980: Deputy Minister of Economic Coordination 1980-1981: Minister of Trade 1985-1989: Parliamentary spokesperson for New Democracy 1989-1990: Minister of Agriculture 1990-1991: Minister of Industry, Energy and Technology 1995-2000: Secretary General of New Democracy 2000-2003: Senior Member of the Political Analysis Steering Committee of New Democracy 2000-2004: Head of the New Democracy delegation, Council of Europe March 2004 - October 2004: European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs From November 2004: European Commissioner for the Environment. Speech given at the Greek Western Conference, Brussles, May 30, 2006. “Stopping the loss of biodiversity by 2010:

Why nature matters. Why we are losing it. And what we in Europe can do about it”. http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/2006-May/000306.html.]
There can be no doubt that stopping the loss of biodiversity and limiting  climate change are the two most important challenges facing the planet. And  while climate change takes up much of the media attention, in one  fundamental way biodiversity loss is an even more serious threat. This is  because the degradation of ecosystems often reaches a point of no return –  and because extinction is forever.  The reasons for biodiversity loss are well known: destruction of habitats,  pollution, over-exploitation, invasive alien species and, most recently,  climate change. The compound effect of these forces is terrifying. The  global rate of extinction is at least 100 times the natural rate, and an  estimated 34,000 plant and 5,200 animal species face extinction. This means  one in eight of all bird species, one quarter of all mammals and one third  of all amphibians are endangered. Scientists are not exaggerating when they  refer to the 6th great planetary extinction. The last was 65 million years  ago and saw the departure of the dinosaurs.  This situation explains why, in 2001, the European Union’s leaders set the  goal of not only slowing down but actually halting the loss of biodiversity  in the EU by 2010. They also joined 130 other world leaders in 2002 to set  the global goal of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by  2010.  The Commission’s response to this challenge is the Communication and Action  Plan that we adopted last week. The Communication is a firm and unambiguous  political commitment from the Barroso Commission to prioritise biodiversity  and it is a recognition that existing efforts need to be stepped up. I will  present some of the key elements later – but probably the most important  aspect of the Communication is that it clearly spells out why biodiversity  matters.  There are two fundamental reasons why preserving our natural environment is  essential. Each on its own is a compelling reason for action. Taken together  they mean that protecting biodiversity must be placed at the top of our  political agenda.  The first is that nature has an intrinsic value. Nature is a part of our  culture, our history - and even our religions. We have a moral obligation to  be careful stewards of the planet. And because ecosystem degradation is  often irreversible and species loss is always so, when we destroy nature we  are depriving future generations of options for their survival and  development. This is not only irresponsible behaviour – it is also  unethical.  The second reason is that nature is the foundation for our quality of life.  We must be honest and accept that there is a widely held – and entirely  wrong – perception that nature protection comes at the cost of economic  development. Correcting this myth is the main theme of the Commission’s  Communication. Its key messages are that our prosperity is underpinned by  healthy ecosystems and that ecosystems - both in the EU and worldwide - are  far from healthy. They are, in fact, in dangerous decline.