and consumption. Biosafety measures must be formulated and adopted for nanotechnology research and development activities with the active participation of all stakeholders to ensure that socioeconomic and ethical concerns are ad­dressed. Countries may consider adopting a legally-binding international standard or protocol on the assessment of nanotechnology products and processes to ensure safety for human and animal health and the environment.

5.3.6     Precision agriculture
Precision agriculture is a comprehensive system designed to optimize agricultural productivity while minimizing pro­duction costs, fertilizer, pesticide and water inputs and ad­verse environmental effects through the application of crop information, advanced technology and management prac­tices (NRC, 1997). The main ideas behind precision agricul­ture are understanding spatial variability of soil properties, crop status and yield within a field; identifying the reasons for yield variability; making farming prescription and crop production management decisions based on variability and knowledge;  implementing  site-specific  field  management operations; evaluating the efficiency of treatment; and accu­mulating spatial resource information for further manage­ment decision making (Wang, 2001). Simply put, this trans­lates to using the appropriate inputs at the optimal times in the appropriate ways.
     Precision agriculture may include the integration of geographic information systems (GIS) or remote sensing technology with farm management and technologies to im­prove crop and livestock production in terms of product quality, environmental issues and the welfare of people and livestock (Cox, 2002). The suite of technologies currently used include GIS hardware and software, variable-rate ap­plication equipment for seed, fertilizer and pesticide, grid soil sampling, low-volume irrigation, soil fertility and weed population sensors, yield monitoring capability and remote sensing imagery. Attention to soil quality, efficient water management, IPM, INM and efficient postharvest manage­ment are all important in precision farming (Persley and Doyle, 1999).

5.3.6.1  Impact
Most formal and informal agricultural research and exten­sion systems in the ESAP region currently provide blanket fertilizer and pesticide recommendations for large produc­tions areas. Yet, on-farm studies in double and triple-rice cropping systems in India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam present evidence of huge field-to-field variation in native soil nitrogen (N) supply where the variation was not associated with soil organic matter content, total N, or other measures of soil N availability (Olk et al., 1999). Given this variation, site-specific nutrient and pesticide management is more ef­ficient and could have positive economic and human and environmental health benefits (Cassman, 1999). Although there is a potential for benefits from precision agriculture, these have not yet been well-documented (Auernhammer, 2001). As most of the technologies involved are expensive as well as data- and knowledge-intensive, their implementa­tion and adoption is likely to be slow and variable in devel­oping countries of ESAP.

5.3.6.2   Challenges
Adoption of precision agriculture has been relatively slow even in developed ESAP countries such as Australia, Japan and New Zealand. Causes of slow adoption in Australia include: (1) cost of adoption, (2) lack of perceived benefit from adoption, (3) unwillingness to be early adopters and (4) lack of a technology delivery mechanism (Cook et al., 2000). These obstacles are likely to impede adoption in developing countries, but lack of reliable information and data (GIS coverage, satellite imagery, soil maps) as well as expertise, equipment and small land holdings can also rep­resent important barriers.
     As with the dissemination of almost any new technol­ogy-oriented intervention,  precision  agriculture  is  likely to be adopted first by resource-rich farmers in areas with high yield potential, with poorer farmers and particularly women, benefiting later, if at all. However, it may be pos­sible to improve rural livelihoods in rainfed and marginal areas in the ESAP region by disseminating elements of pre­cision agriculture that do not call for sophisticated technol­ogies like GIS, but rely on quick, easy to use, cheap tests and measures of soil, crop and pest infestation parameters. Such low-investment, low-technology interventions could improve production efficiencies through a combination of conservation agriculture practices such as IPM and INM and efficient postharvest management. Public and private sector investment will be needed to develop scientific capac­ity and technology transfer and support mechanisms (Cass­man, 1999). It will also require educating extension agents and farmers to use locally-adapted seed, diagnose limiting factors, predict yields and input requirements and modify management regimes accordingly.

5.3.7     Information and communication technologies (ICT)
Limited access to information has been a major hurdle facing low-income farmers, extension agents, civil society organization workers and others in the agricultural sector throughout the ESAP region. Possibilities for ICT application in agriculture include facilitating the access of rural commu­nities to information on efficient farm management and the market through radio and TV shows as well as computer ki­osks. GIS and related tools provide information on land use/ land cover, water quality, productivity, tidal influence and coastal infrastructure, and can increase the efficiency and sustainability of coastal fisheries and shrimp farming (Ra-jitha et al., 2007). New and emerging agricultural technolo­gies depend heavily on advances in ICT and would not be possible without applications that support high-throughput genetic and genomic work and the manipulation, analysis and interpretation of large sets of data. Further, ICT has re­sulted in "knowledge management" (KM), the creation, dis­semination and utilization of knowledge by combining or­ganizational dynamics and knowledge engineering with ICT (Flor, 2001). Much of the KM experience has been limited to the private sector, but organizations such as the World Bank, FAO and CGIAR have also launched initiatives.
     The proliferation of ICT in the form of radios, tele­phones, televisions and computers and more recently, GIS, remote sensing and the use of information technology in