Drones in farming : The Advent of technology in Contemporary Agriculture

The emergent drone technology has stepped in all field of the country. Catering to the rising population and their hunger needs the farming techniques aim to increase the crop yield. Smart technologies and use of automated high end machineries has endured in many steps of the farming process to produce better outputs. 

India is an agrarian economy and farming sector contributes a major chunk in the country’s income. Apparently the hands on farm ratio to that of the abundant lands in extremely inadequate. This increases the pressure to give optimum results and hinders the future of farming. The increased need of machinery and lack of human power has boosted the drone technology in farming. Unlike the other machines drones don’t require continuous human interference. Likewise, machinery used in farming is human driven, drone technology on the contrary doesn’t require continuous human interference. This is where the concept of saving valuable time and making best use of resources comes into concern.

Diversified Applications

Drone technology in farming has paved its way over the decade. Drones have made the process of harvesting, sowing, and spreading of fertilisers easier. Drones have changed the concept of humans on the farm and it is safe to say that the future of farming is in best hands. One need not need to far fetch things and spend time in frequently monitoring the farm when drones can do the needful.

Drones in farming are majorly used for two purposes-

• Surveying the Farming Fields
• Spraying the fertilisers, planting seeds and many more activities to reduce the efforts of man.

Surveying helps in figuring out precise data about the farms. This produces high resolution images that are suitable for accurate decision making and help make inspections accurate. Determining of crop conditions and their suitable time of growth can be well inspected by drones. Pre-determination of crop failures, livestock management, regular checking of crop health and preparing the crop of weather glitches is the best of the features drones can offer.

Huge hectares of land require huge amounts of people spraying fertilisers and pesticides. This is a time consuming task and can take up ages for completion. Hence, it can be swapped by drones to reduce the efforts and efficient competition of the task. Apart from this planting of seeds, 

• Sorting 
• And packing are all the different jobs of drones in farming.

In India Drone technology has upgraded and boomed since the past few years. The interests of people have been more driven towards technology that helps save time and works in larger quantities. 

Applications of drone technology in farming are also seen in varied fields. These changes can help farming and pave a way for the future of drones in agriculture. These include-

• Checking the crop health
• Livestock Management
• Soil and Depth of the field and its analysis by farming-drones
• Plantation analysis
• Monitoring Growth
• Crop Monitoring
• Geo-fencing of drones in farming
• Crop Spraying by specialised agri-drones
• Avoid Chemical Use and its overuse
• Preparing for weather glitches for the future of farming practices

All these applications of drones in farming have accelerated the processes in the country. 

This is the start and the entire farming industry is eventually taking shape. The upcoming culture of start-up industries has successfully proved a point that drones will be making the other farming industry and the farmer’s work easier and more effective as compared to the traditional times. Future of farming will enhance employment opportunities too.

A country like that of India could really sore up to heights per year with the advent of drone’s usage in farming. The policies were rightly initiated and reformed according to the convenience of the drone pilot as well as in supporting the farming industry. Until last few years it was mostly associated with the defence sector back but in recent times, it is seen that the spreading of into construction and mining into farming and are providing better results to people as they do not waste time on apprehensions as well as he also talked about the advent of drone industry for the young talent and move forward with a changed the mind-set of the people. On saying this he also ensured that the government will henceforth give priority to technology and innovations in the budget and policy-making where new or ideas can be taken into consideration. Farmers can be taught the use of drones and start using high-capacity drones for transportation of raw materials or produced in finished goods like vegetables, fruits and flowers to markets and least amount of time which can also cut down the transportation, cost and health and boosting their daily wage. 

The Growth Restraints and Drivers of Drone Applications

The initiative of the drone technology in farming is nothing but commendable and up to a vibrant Start up that has been looked upon and given importance to.

This entire process basically can be divided into two sections which involves growth drivers and process restraints in the future of drones in farming. There are various pros and cons of the situation that basically make the entire drone technology pretty much difficult to set its roots in the field of farming. One of the major growth drivers are-

• Good amount of yield rates that have been driven by replacing manual, spraying of pesticides and fertilisers by drones.
• Employment opportunities in small towns and rural areas where young minds are basically taught how to fly drones.
• Decrease in price of future of drones in farming, has slowly and steadily started to increase and this has also reduced the price that it takes to spray and sensing the imagery.

The growth Restraints are-

• Lack of drone technology and awareness about the same remote regions of the country and regards to the entire concept future of agriculture.
• The major problem here is that most of the farmers in the country work on farms that are very small in size. Hence, the size of drones cannot be used for spraying that are generally used in the other regions. Similarly, usage of smaller drones in such areas also proved to be difficult because the cost of drone operation cannot be borne by the farmer. Hence manual operations are preferred more than the drones.

Generally, the major problem that is seen at large and the entire drone technology and farming in India is that the rules and regulations or not in favour of people flying drones plus the people due to lack of knowledge tend to stop the drone pilots from flying and conditions where the information needs to be extracted so that it can save the farm. 

The DGCA, directorate general of civil aviation has decided to upgrade and update their rules on drone flying which has also help in the entire spraying operations by a total of 50% of the total market share. 

The labour that is involved in the farming applications in the country is majorly the unskilled labour for the application and flying of the drones. Will take a good quality of time. This is one of the other disadvantages that has majorly been seen in the drone technology. Industry in the country is that sowing operations by drones are lesser as compared to the spring operations. This is because sowing has limited use year and plus it gets difficult in regions where you have multiple crop growth, and in paddy regions.

Looking at the, the pros and cons as well as the drones use in farming it can be concluded that since the past few years, the application of drones in the various sectors has started being accepted by the people. Various start-ups have been established the entire country which basically provide a boon to the entire industry by scanning and providing accurate and exact data. In a push from the government agencies and the amount of money that has been invested in the drone technology, especially in the farming field can help in providing better results. The upcoming future of drones in farming technology being an emerging field in all sectors. 

To summarise the earlier we can clearly understand that in a country like India which is majorly focused on farming; with the help of drones we can make future of agriculture sector even stronger and efficient.

AUTHOR

– Smruti Sachin Puntambekar 

(Data Processing)