Presentation at Geospartial World Forum in Rotterdam, May 2013

1. Uptake of GNSS technology
amongst Danish farmers
Jens Peter Hansen
Specialist, ICT
Business Development
jph@vfl.dk

2. The Knowledge Centre for Agriculture is part
of Agro Food Park
The Knowledge Centre for Agriculture contributes to
transforming the latest knowledge of farming to
world-class food products
The Knowledge Centre for Agriculture is a specialist
subsidiary of the trade organisation Danish
Agriculture & Food Council that organises 90% of all
farmers
More than 500 employees

3. Knowledge Centre activities are
Cultivation of the soil
Animal welfare, health
and breeding
Business finance, tax
and law
Food quality and -
safety
Building and work
environment
IT in farming
Environment, nature
and bioenergy
Nature conservation
Organic farming
Rural development
Advisory service
abroad

4. Dansk landbrug
40.000 bedrifter
Tendens: flere store og flere små deltidsbedrifter
Værdi af landbrugseksporten: 65 mia. kr.
Beskæftigelse i primærlandbrug og gartneri:
65.000 personer
Danish agriculture
30,000 farms > 10 hectare
Average 86 hectare
Tendency: More large and more small
part-time farms
Value of the agricultural export: 9 billion €
Employment in farms and nurseries:
65,000 persons

5. 30.000 farms larger than 10 hectares

6. 4.000 farms larger than 100 hectares and focus upon plant production

7. Survey set up
E-mail with link send to 14,000 Danish farmers
All respondents are registered users of the portal
landmand.dk, which for most Danish farmers is the
main entrance to web based information and
services.
March 2013
Part of a survey about mobile phones
More than 6,000 farmers filled in the questionnaire
(response rate = 43 %).

11. 0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
0 - 9 hectare 10 - 49 hectare 50 - 99 hectare 100 - 249 hectare 250 - 499 hectare Larger than 500
hectare
Respondents compared to national statistic
Survey Statistic

12. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
0 - 9 hectare 10 - 49 hectare 50 - 99 hectare 100 - 249 hectare 250 - 499 hectare 500 hectare or more
Respondents
GNSS and cultivated hectares
No Yes Percent

13. 0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
0 - 9 hectare 10 - 49 hectare 50 - 99 hectare 100 - 249 hectare 250 - 499 hectare 500 hectare or more
R
e
s
p
o
n
d
e
n
t
s
Technology and cultivated hectares
RTK OmniStar EGNOS GPS Other

14. 0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Systems installed per year
RTK OmniStar EGNOS GPS Other

15. 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
My farm is too small
Don't think it will pay off
I have no interest in that kind of technology
Lack knowledge about GNSS
Have not yet looked into potential & ROI
Waiting for better equipment and lower prices
Expect to buy in the next 12 months
Reasons for not investing in GNSS technology
0 - 9 hectare 10 - 49 hectare 50 - 99 hectare 100 - 249 hectare 250 - 499 hectare 500 hectare or more

16. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Auto steering
Section control
GPS documentation
VR, fertilizer
VR, pesticides
Yield monitoring
Hours spend per field
Respondents
Importance of GNSS uses
Neccesary Very important Important Slightly important Unimportant
Unverified preliminary data from a survey in the GeoWebAgri project –
result will be presented at EFITA 2013 in Turin, Italy

17. Main findings from the survey
18 % (n =1.069) uses some kind of GNSS
technology on their machinery
RTK is dominating with 41 % (n = 448) using this
technology followed by EGNOS which is used
by 29 % (n = 311)
Amongst farmers not using GNSS, “too small a
farm” is given as reason by 51 % (n = 2.527) and
“not an economical sound investment” is stated
by 38 % (n = 1.908)