I was in the final year of my engineering studies, when I joined a group of batchmates on a project assignment and traveled to a village in Uttar Pradesh. We wanted to study the problem of farmers in the village and identify solutions that can help them. When we started interacting with some of the farmers, we learnt that they were completely unaware of how technology that can help them do better farming and help improve productivity. Over these conversations, we shared with them about the latest technologies that can make a difference in their lifestyle and can be used for better farming.
I saw few farmers spraying pesticides manually with their hands, on hot summer days, in extreme weather conditions, where I could barely stand by for a minute. I went to one of them and said, “DRONES can help doing your job. Sprinkler drones which can be controlled sitting in the shade, can evenly spray pesticides all over the crops, in a very small duration of time”.
The farmer, taken by surprise asked, “Is it possible? If so, wish you best of luck.”
An agricultural drone is an aircraft that can be remotely controlled and made to perform certain important everyday tasks such as – crop monitoring, soil analysis, nutrient spraying, seeding & planting etc with scientific precision and accuracy, which makes farmers more efficient and significantly brings down the cost of manpower. Drones carry various tools including high resolution cameras, infrared / thermal sensors. Ground penetrating RADAR, could even measure soil conditions and suggest actions.
Technology can play an important role in holistically advancing the agriculture industry and integrating solutions & initiatives into one unified whole, encouraging deeper collaboration between governments, technology, leaders and farmers.
It’s time for Agropreneurs to embrace such game changing innovations, maximize productivity and reap the benefits of living in a digital age.
Sprinkler drones can save a farmer’s time, money and energies. It takes a human worker a full day to cover 0.65 acre of fields. Now, that can be done with a drone in just 2 minutes. A drone can cover 65-80 acres of fields in one day and can be programmed to spray effectively – reaching the lower parts of the crops and underneath the leaves.
We no longer need to worry about having a lack of farming skills or labour capacity, when emergencies occur.
With the DJI agriculture management platform by Dà-Jiāng Innovations Science and Technology Co Ltd we can automate sprinkling, check the status of these unmanned aerial vehicles (agricultural drones) as well as calculate the extent of the fields covered. Drones will serve more farmers in need. Agricultural Drone technology will give the agriculture industry a high-technology makeover, enabling planning and strategy based on real-time data gathering and processing. PwC estimates the market for drone-powered solutions in agriculture at $32.4 billion.
Picture courtesy: Statista
industries where drones can be successful – get your drone app built by codewave
Smart farming through mobile apps can easen the life of a farmer. Farmers can study data, take informed decisions and perform important tasks from anywhere, at any point of time. The most important challenge is to develop an app which is user friendly and easy to use, since most of the farmers in rural areas may not be tech savvy. With these technologies, farmers can be educated about opportunities across the industry, from yield optimization, fertilizer management, food safety and connecting the market.
With the invention of smartphones, farmers can be assisted with a mobile app which enables them to be more productive and more accurate while in the field and off the field. For example, an app could help farmers manage grass procurement, by suggesting the cheapest feed available for their livestock. You will no longer need paper to do this. An app could also help the farmer more accurately calculate the amount of feed to be given to animals, to avoid obesity and health problems which can be caused by under or overfeeding. Agricultural players can drastically improve their efficiency using mobile and cloud platforms.
There’s huge responsibility on technology leaders and app developers of today, to empower people and businesses in the agriculture industry, all stakeholders participating in the economy, including farmers, fertilizer & agriculture equipment companies, encouraging them to be open for technology led advancements.
Codewave, brings unique collective potential, digitization capabilities and nurtured talent to help the government, organizations and individuals build advanced, intelligent automation systems; empower Agropreneurs and businesses in agriculture take better decisions with data; enable farmers to be more entrepreneurial, responding better to risks and adversities and do much more.
Here are few advancements with technology we predict, where the industry is heading towards: