Agriculture is facing great challenges in a world of changing climate and increased responsibility to find sustainable solutions to problems on both a local and a global scale, while agriculture at the same time faces higher costs for many inputs. Making decisions under such complex conditions is a delicate task. Precision agriculture is considered by many people as a tool to improve the efficiency of use of inputs and thereby improve resource utilization and reduction of the impact on the surrounding environment. In Sweden, POS (Precision Agriculture Sweden) has worked with precision agriculture since the mid -1990s. POS has carried out research, development and dissemination of information for over 10 years. Nevertheless, the results in terms of the practical use of the knowledge that emerged have been limited. This experience is shared by many researchers in the field. Despite new knowledge, technologies and apparently effective methods to improve farming, economy, crop quality and reduce the impact on the surrounding environment, there are few farmers who adopt new decision models and take advantage of the information accessed. A major  explanation of farmers´ lacking interest is the need for more usable decision support systems which are better adapted to farmers ' actual requirements of information and technological support. This paper aims to describe the farmers ' decision-making based on the practical use of soil maps, in relation to farmers' so-called life-world. The life-world concept refers to their everyday social situation and their working life. In a pilot project we have observed farmers and their advisers during meetings regarding crop production planning. These encounters are complex social situations in which individuals with different backgrounds, expectations, goals and experiences are collaborating with the help of material artifacts in order to develop a common understanding, gain new knowledge and perform proper decisions. We use theories from distributed and situated cognition to capture farmers' life-world and to describe the learning and decision making processes emerging from the interactions between farmers and advisers. Our results describe how soil maps, a central material artifact in precision agriculture, are used in the decision making processes regarding crop planning. How are different perspectives negotiated in the meeting between farmers and advisors? Finally, we address some open research challenges and questions. What potential can new decision support systems have to increase and facilitate the use of production data in farmers’ decision making processes? What characteristics should these decision support systems have in order to be accepted and usable in practice, so they become an integral part of the farmer's life-world?