Many farmers are looking for easy, affordable and sustainable means to improve the productivity of their farms. This requires careful planning and one of the first things a farmer should do is develop a useful map of their land.

What is farm mapping?

Farm mapping is a precision agriculture technique that allows farmers to create detailed maps of their property. With the rapid growth in the agricultural sector, agricultural field mapping is an important way to monitor land and manage future activities. It gives an overview of information including data on soil health and nutrition, slopes, water and irrigation systems.

When done, it permits farmers to employ different practices on their land that are designed to maximize and optimize land usage and productivity, use resources efficiently and reduce risk. It also allows you to modify current behaviours and gives room for expansion.

Importance of farm mapping.

• It gives a detailed map and overview of the entire farm and all the components of the farm. It shows the boundaries and location of each component and helps in the placement of components such as fences, barnyards, grazing areas, recreational areas, storage, and residential areas.
• It identifies areas on the farm where water sources mix (sensitive areas such as streams, wetlands, waterways, or any other place where water coming from the livestock operation or barnyard comes into contact with clean water), and practices that may contribute to water and land pollution (such as not having proper manure storage or spreading manure too close to a stream or wetland).

• It helps identify soil types and other characteristics, such as slope, that can be helpful in making management decisions like grazing plans and crop rotations. A map can be helpful when selecting compost or manure storage areas.
• A  farm map plays an important role in emergency planning. In case of an incident in the frame such as fire, manure spillage or flood, a farm map will be able to identify locations on the farm that are at risk.

This goes without doubt that, the first step in starting up a  successful farmstead is by having a farm map as it will help in placing activities where they are most suited on the site and where productivity is at its highest.