Remote Sensing Technologies: Implications for Agricultural and Resource Economics

Agricultural and resource economics applications over the last half-century have taken advantage of and promoted the development of methods of dynamic analysis and optimal control. These methods have the twin goals of improving our information about dynamic resource systems and our ability to manage them effectively. Remote Sensing Technologies (RST) currently in use and on the cusp of development will vastly increase data availability, thereby making tools of dynamic analysis and control much more useful, and creating incentives for their further development. We describe over a number of companies that currently operate different types of RST, many of them employed in agricultural and resource sectors. We then discuss the qualitative improvements likely to become available due to an emerging technology in development by Theia. This technology offers more precise information-gathering with enhanced temporal and spatial resolution, and spectral capability that maps underground resources. These new technologies enable society to increase agricultural productivity while protecting natural resources for future use. The technologies also will enable economists to learn about behavioral responses to changing policy and environmental conditions. The more precise, frequent, and temporally disaggregated information will improve resource models’ empirical grounding, making them much more useful for policy. The better information will also make it practical to use property-rights-based regulation instead of the dominant methods that now rely on taxes, subsidies, and direct controls. In the process, these changes will create new capital, possibly lifting millions out of poverty. As when any paradigm-shifting technology becomes available, we should be alert to and guard against the possibility of unintended harmful consequences.