India: Use of drones in agricultural sector set to gain currency

[Skull and Bones]

With the civil aviation ministry relaxing the relevant rules, a clutch of firms, including IoTechworld Aviation and Garuda Aerospace, have firmed up plans to manufacture and sell such drones for farming.

IoTechworld , the first company to get approval to manufacture drones for farming, is planning to sell 1,000 drones in the current financial year, Deepak Bhardwaj, director and founder, told FE. So far, the company has sold around 300 drones in 2022-23.

Garuda Aerospace is in the process of manufacturing more than 2,500 drones for the farming sector in the next two years, Agnishwar Jayaprakash, founder and CEO, Garuda Aerospace, recently said.

Aerial Drobotics, Paras Aerospace, General Aeronautics and Crystal Ball are the other companies with plans to manufacture drones for the farming sector, according to industry officials.

Around 1,000 aerial vehicles are currently being used in the agricultural sector in the country.

According to Bhardwaj, IoTechworld has tied up with Syngenta India, Dhanuka Agritech and others for the venture. Spraying of fertilisers and fungicides across agriculture fields using drones would results in uniformity in applications, he said.

“Optimum use of soil nutrients and pesticides using drones will help farmers save around 20% of their cost of application and reduce health hazards associated with manual spraying,” Bhardwaj said. He said that last year, it raised around Rs 30 crore from agrochemical major Dhanuka Agritech, while it is in the process of raising funds from external investors.

By setting up networks of village-level entrepreneurs, through facilitating loans under agri infra funds, the company is targeting to expand its drones sales across 12 states. The cost of a drone manufactured by IoTechworld is in the range of Rs 7-8 lakh.

The company has applied for shortlisting for supply of drones with various state governments such as Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan.

The drone certification scheme, launched earlier this year, was developed by the Quality Council of India in consultation with drone startups, industry, academia and defence experts.

“Drones are currently used for pesticide and liquid fertiliser applications, mapping of water spread area, water sampling, mapping macrophyte infestation, aquaculture management practices, etc,” an agriculture ministry official said.

The official said that given that over 85% of the farmers are small landholders, individual farmers buying drones for individual use proves expensive. “We are encouraging FPOs, customer-hiring centres and service providers to buy drones, so that they can provide services to farmers with a fee,” an official said.

Earlier this year, the agriculture ministry had released standard operating procedures (SPOs) for the use of drones in pesticide and nutrient application.

To make drone technology affordable to farmers as well as to other service providers, the agriculture ministry, under the sub-mission on agricultural mechanisation, provides subsidies in the range of 40-100% for the cost of drones.

https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/use-of-drones-in-agricultural-sector-set-to-gain-currency/2702654/

 

[Bilal9]

Japan has used drone type aircraft to spray pesticides since early 1990's. Bangladesh used drones for the first time in 2015. The project was a JV between our agri development corp. and CIMMYT (an NGO).

Monitoring Farmland

Drones used for first time in Bangladesh​

Sohrab Hossain
Wed Mar 4, 2015 12:20 AM Last update on: Sun Mar 29, 2015 09:26 AM

A drone built for collecting farm data is in operation at Jainkathi of Patuakhali Sadar upazila. Photo: Star

For the first time in the country, agriculturalists have started using drones to monitor farmlands in the southern districts of Barisal and Patuakhali.

The radio-controlled unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs equipped with a set of cameras, take high resolution photos of the soil and crops, said Dr Ziauddin Ahmed, geographic information systems and remote sensing scientist of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT).

"Using the images taken by the octocopters, scientists can rapidly assess the condition of crops on a large scale without going through the tedious and time-consuming manual sampling," he said.

"Issues like crop growth, nutrient deficiency and water abundance, disease attacks and insect infestation can easily be quantified after analysing the UAV images," Ziauddin continued.

International NGO CIMMYT is implementing the project -- Spurring a Transformation for Agriculture through Remote Sensing (STARS) -- in association with Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute and Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council with approval from the defence ministry.

Two drones have been bought from Germany under the 20-month project that began in November last year and are now being used to collect data from 23 acres of land in four villages of Patuakhali and Barisal. Maize, wheat and mung bean are being cultivated in the land.

The project's prime objective is to analyse farming conditions and improving them in the southern part of the country as per a master plan of the government.

The data obtained through the drone images would help farmers decide when and how to best irrigate and apply fertilisers, Dr Ziauddin told this correspondent while visiting a site in Patuakhali on Monday.

Gradually, data on crop damage from floods and cyclones will also be collected by the drones, he added.
The farmers in the project areas are upbeat about the new technology.

"If we can better understand the needs of our farmlands by using this technology, we can increase production of crops significantly," said Monirul Haque, a farmer of Patuakhali's Jainkathi village, a project site.

Drones used for first time in Bangladesh

For the first time in the country, agriculturalists have started using drones to monitor farmlands in the southern districts of Barisal and Patuakhali.

www.thedailystar.net

 

[Skull and Bones]