. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: Email: mbasu200@gmail.com American Journal of Experimental Agriculture 1(3): 49-68, 2011 SCIENCEDOMAIN international www.sciencedomain.org Critical Review of Precision Agriculture Technologies and Its Scope of Adoption in India Pinaki Mondal 1 , M. Basu 2* and P. B. S. Bhadoria 2 1 International Centre for Automotive Technology, Manesar, Haryana, India 2 Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, P. O. Box 721302, India Received 1 st February 2011 Accepted 7 th March 2011 Online Ready 16 th March 2011 ABSTRACT Precision agriculture (PA) concept was initiated for site specific crop management as a combination of positioning system technology, variable rate technology, remote sensing, yield mapping etc. to optimize the profitability, sustainability with a reduced environmental impact. From centuries Indian farms are experiencing some sort of soft precision agriculture technology. But the challenges of free and globalized market as well as ever-increasing population with huge food grain demand create the scope of adoption of hard precision agriculture technology in Indian farms. So learning the new agricultural technology invented in developed countries and its proper modification and application according to the domestic condition is necessary. Therefore, nearly hundred research papers generated in last three decades have been critically reviewed to find the status of main six components of PA, i.e., Positioning System, Remote Sensing, Variable Rate Technology, Crop & Soil Sensing & Analysis, Yield Mapping and Information Transmission Protocol. Additionally strategies for adoption of PA in Indian agriculture are discussed. Keywords: Precision agriculture; GPS; remote sensing; yield mapping; VRT; Indian agriculture; 1. INTRODUCTION To meet the huge food grain requirement of 480 million tonnes (Mt) by the year 2050, with increasing challenge of biotic and abiotic stresses experienced by crops, introduction and adoption of modern technology in Indian agriculture is inevitable. Agriculture, like other industries, has made entry into knowledge-based era, leaving its previous resource based Review Article