There is an immediate paradox apparent in precision farming because it applies all of it ‘s precision and recognition of variability to the land, yet operates under the assumption of idealism and normative notions when it comes to considering the farmer.  Precision Agriculture (PA) systems have often considered the farmer as an optimiser of profit, or maximiser of efficiency, and therefore replaceable with mathematical constructs, so that although at the centre of decision making they are effectively made to disappear. However if the farmer disappears then so does the farm in terms of individualism and it simply becomes a patch work of zones and problem setting strategy generates the traditional approach to linear extension models. However practicing farmers  do not think  or act in the same way as the model specifies they should, the models might be more idealistic rather than realistic.

This paper explores the idea that “bricolage” could make a useful contribution to explain the slow rates of adoption achieved in PA, or put another way, the lack of apparent appeal of PA even though it would appear to offer many benefits through optimisation. Even the social science that has been applied to PA  would appear to be enamoured with achieving greater precision by removing the individual farmer by breaking them down into generalised categories and sub sets to explain their behaviour.

The French anthropologist Leví Struass introduced the concept of bricolage in the nineteen sixties to counter “the  supposed ineptitude of ‘primitive people’ for abstract thought”, in contrast to the highly engineered solutions driven by modern science. In essence bricolage is a cobbling together of what is at hand, (local or particular knowledge  and available enabling technologies). Essentially this process is driven by on-going curiosity and an iterative trial and error development of partial solutions rather than a linear march where curiosity has been replaced by “so-called” certainty. The idea of bricolage has gone on to be developed in a number of fields relevant to PA, such as information systems development, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurial activity, but to date it has not been applied to PA.

Case study evidence of very early adopters and the most advanced or leading edge farmers indicate that they are individuals with individual interests, skills and knowledge. What they tend to do is target their areas of improvement and build solutions based on their particular knowledge and the enabling technologies at their disposal. Essentially a bricolage,  which is driven by the individual farmers on-going curiosity and producing workable precision at the individual farm level.