In 2023 the ISPA board determined that it was time to expand upon the Precision Agriculture definition and ensure that the definition can be applied to all areas of agriculture.  The original ISPA precision agriculture definition is widely used by researchers, farmers and agribusiness. That definition is usually interpreted to focus exclusively on managing temporal and spatial variability excluding most of precision livestock farming (PLF) which deals primarily with animal-to-animal variability. The only PLF aspect which has been included in the ICPA, ECPA and in PRAG is precision grazing, which has a strong spatial component. As technology develops and crop PA moves toward individual plant management, PLF and crop PA technologies are converging. It would be beneficial for both communities to be in communication. The proposed change added “plant and animal” to the text: “Precision Agriculture is a management strategy that gathers, processes and analyzes temporal, spatial and individual plant and animal data…”
 
This proposed definition change was first distributed to Country Representatives for feedback, followed by two announcements in the ISPA monthly newsletter.  ISPA members were encouraged to submit their feedback and the board received emails from members voicing their support of the definition change.  In January 2024 the ISPA board voted to approve the Precision Agriculture definition change.

“Precision Agriculture is a management strategy that gathers, processes and analyzes temporal, spatial and individual plant and animal data and combines it with other information to support management decisions according to estimated variability for improved resource use efficiency, productivity, quality, profitability and sustainability of agricultural production.”

Revised January 2024