Cane-land productivity monitoring and enhancement - appropriate use of information technology

Considerable attention is being focussed on the application of new information technologies, such as geographic information systems and remote sensing, to enhance the productivity of sugarcane farms and in the management of mill operations. There has been considerable advances in information technology recently, both in standardisation of computer operating systems and applications software over a range of hardware platforms, and in decreasing costs of computer-based technologies, In spite of the problems noted above, it is now possible to envisage a comprehensive cane-land management information system (MIS) operational at both farm and mill area levels, and also contributing standardised, aggregated data to an industry-wide information system for productivity analysis.