(Written by Maya Chdid & Chaya Maheshwari)
For ages, most of farming has been manual legwork. Labor had to be employed to walk down rows, through fields, going crop-by-crop to check for diseases, parched soil or any other signs of distress. Several technological advancements and automation methods including modern machinery, soil-testing, computers, and ground-based sensors have made crop monitoring and tending more efficient. However, even with a trained eye, important yield determining factors like nitrogen deficiency or diminished photosynthesis go undetected. Moreover, the effect of one ailing plant on the hundreds of thousands of plants that surround it, can hardly be guessed.
Drones today, are revolutionizing agriculture pushing it to what we call precision farming.
So, what exactly are drones? A drone aircraft is an unmanned aerial vehicle, (UAV). Today’s drones more and more resemble the radio-controlled airplanes and helicopters that have been available in hobby stores since we were kids.
How is this affecting almost every part of the value chain of agriculture? Some of the key examples include:
- Soil Analysis: this helps in planning irrigation, managing nitrogen levels & planning seed patterns. By capturing visual differences, Drones map the soil basis, pH, salinity, texture, organic matter content as well as slope
- Cost reduction: Drones can do seed planting, resulting in huge savings in labor cost and increased efficiency. In addition, the seed planning patterns are determined by the drone helping achieve for higher yields.
- Efficiency: Spraying of crops with fertilizers/ liquids in real time is done by drones by modulating distances with technologies like ultrasonic echoing and laser; this ensures time efficiency (5 times faster) & decreases penetration of chemicals in ground water.
- Improved irrigation: Drones can show exactly which part of the field is dry and which part will need to be improved so irrigation can be efficiently determined and planned by thermal sensors.
- Health Assessment: plant stress can be mostly attributed to pest attacks, shortage of nutrients or shortage of water which causes photosynthetic activity to decrease, affecting the chlorophyll levels. A near infrared sensor can detect the green light emitted by crops, thus tracking changes in plants and helping them quantify the plant’s health. Farmers can now not only prevent failures, but also document the process for insurance purposes since this technology provides real-time series revealing trouble spots and opportunities.
- Crop Monitoring and better management: Satellite images need to be ordered in advance, however drones can give you a real time pictures every minute and every hour which helps in achieving higher efficiencies and better management.
So why is this technology considered to be a disruption when compared to satellites drones?
- Cheaper – can be bought for 1000$ whereas manned aviation is 1000$ per hour
- Has higher resolution since they cruise under the clouds
- Has unobstructed views and is always available
- Farming is an input output problem and by use of drone technology we can reduce inputs of water & chemicals while increasing outputs
However, no new technology comes without its own set of risks and issues. Regulation plays a huge role in scaling this to achieve yield improvement. Some concerns that need to be addressed include:
- Safety of drone operations
- Privacy issues
- Insurance coverage questions – Type & quality of data that can be captured
- Need for developing more sophisticated technology, requiring minimal training & automation
- Regulatory ceiling for unmanned drone operations in different countries
- Perception and threat of drones having the capacity to be deadly weapons
- Some have also bemoaned the use of drones for spying and surveillance.
As part of the course Strategies for the Bottom of the Pyramid at INSEAD, we were introduced to the work of Mr. Philip Parker. This website https://totogeo.org is open for access and has a mission to serve rural communities by bridging the content divide. A lot of examples of the data available on it is captured and disseminated by cutting edge technology, reliance of management science and content automation. This is a great example of how technology can change the way in which agriculture is done in all parts of the world.
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References
- https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/08/22/agricultural-drones-change-way-farm/WTpOWMV9j4C7kchvbmPr4J/story.html
- https://pix4d.com/soil-analysis-seeding-rate-optimization/
- https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601935/six-ways-drones-are-revolutionizing-agriculture/
- https://www.technologyreview.com/s/526491/agricultural-drones/
- http://vyhub.com/css/css/
If found the use of drones in agriculture to be fascinating. I have seen drones being used for for soil-testing and in vineyards to monitor the evolution of grapes. I think as the costs go down this technology will become more widely spread.
There is a potential negative consequences of job reduction by the implementation of these technologies, but the reality is that soil testing and the application of phytosanitary products are jobs that most people don’t want to do because they are quite tedious and in the case of agrochemicals heavy on the body.
A similarly interesting concept is developed by the UK startup BioCarbon Engineering. They are currently bringing to market a drone system that is designed to plant new seeds in cleared rainforest areas. The idea sounds amazing and would avoid the job-risk that Arnau mentioned in his comment.
http://www.biocarbonengineering.com/technologies
Very interesting read. Seems that the agriculture industry will change again a lot in the coming years. Drones are still a rare sight nowadays, wonder how that will look like a couple of years down the road.
Interesting read – seems like farming will change a lot over the coming years again. Drones are still a rare sight today, wonder what this will look like a couple of years down the road.
DO you think if the regulation/legal/etc. aspect of drones can be solved in a consumer urban-related space, that it can then be easily applied to this space? Or vice versa, that it’s more feasible to get it sorted out in agriculture first?
More generally, regulation will depend on which country you’re in. For instance Amazon has been able to test drone delivery in the UK but is “years away” from doing so in the US due to FAA challenges. How will this variability impact the growing global traction in using drones?
Very interesting concept!
I wish to signal another startup (this one based in Singapore) which operates more in the areas of health assessment, crop monitoring and better management:
https://garuda.io/ag/
Believe the drone technology will be more and more important in the coming future in both developed and developing countries.
Very interesting article! I believe that the use of drones is going to be widespread within the industry in the near future. However, coming from a country were the majority of the land is divided among small to mid scale farmers, it would be very interesting to see how applicable or efficient is the use of drones in this setting. Probably as the use of the drones becomes the common norm and its prices become cheaper, it becomes more affordable for small case farmers.
Interesting to see the progress of regulation wrt to safety of drone operations as technology starts getting adopted. We ran into a lot of operational issues when we tried to implement drone technology for similar needs in oil field operations.
Very interesting article. Aviation Authorites in US adn Europe have already done tremendous progress in regulating drones for commercial purposes, so I expect that such solutions will quickly become available in a large scale.