Regional features of the use of precision farming technologies in agriculture

The current development stage is characterized by a disparity in the territorial and industrial level of digital technologies usage. Digital inequality mostly appears in the agricultural sector. The purpose of our research is to determine the regional features of the application of precision farming technologies in the sub-sector of crop production based on the comparison of efficiency indicators of using the production potential of agriculture with indicators that characterize the introduction of precision farming technologies in the territorial formation. For this purpose, we have carried out the theoretical and methodological substantiation of the system of indicators reflecting the processes of digital technology implementation, have investigated the causal relationship between them, have analyzed the trends in the use of precision farming technologies in the crop production sub-sector at the federal and regional levels, and have identified the factors of interregional differences in their implementation. Using the analysis, the paper establishes that the peculiarity of the territorial differentiation of the use of precision farming technologies in the agriculture of the entities of the Russian Federation is their disproportionate development to the level of the available resource potential. The work identifies the factors that most influence the regional differentiation level associated with the use of these technologies by agricultural producers. They include: inconsistency in the strategic priorities of agricultural development in the regions, the predominance of small businesses in the producers’ structure of goods of the sub-sector of crop production, insufficiently effective tools to support the modernization of agricultural production,unequal access to digital infrastructure. The authors have concluded that a uniform standard set of measures to stimulate agricultural producers to innovative development is not applicable for different regions and territorial entities. In this regard, the agriculture modernization, based on digital technologies, requires a balanced approach, including a set of universal tools to support the modernization of agricultural production and a set of differentiated mechanisms for testing and implementing IT technologies adapted to the conditions of the intra-industry environment.