Agricultural Drones: All Set to Transform Agrarian Sector

Technology is transforming every inch of our lives. Almost every sector has witnessed technological revolution and agricultural sector is no exception. Technology has gifted agrarian sector many powers, riding on which it has been able to make close to the ever-rising demand. The latest among the powers that technology has provided to agrarian sector is - Agricultural Drone.

For a layman, utilization of the drones might be limited to just spying, surveillance and bombarding terrorists' hide-outs. However, one with slightly wider knowledge can easily state the mighty utilization of the invention of drones for agriculture sector. These will ease the work of agrarian society to a remarkable extent.

The long walk of the farmers through the farm to keep regular inspection on the crop will be shortened. Drones allow a much better inspection over crop than manual one, because:

• Drones can provide aerial view of the crop, which reveals patterns that unwrap everything from irrigation problems to soil variation, even pest and fungal infestations that can't be visible to naked eyes.
• The cameras attached with the drone can click multispectral images, capture images in the infrared as well as the normal mode, which can be combined to create a reliable data to examine the differences between healthy and distressed plants.
• A drone can be programmed to check on a crop at regular intervals like: every week, every day, or even every hour.
• Drones can be affixed with the spraying equipments to provide the fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, etc. in the crops.
• Flying drone with sound alert promises to be a better guard to scare the attacking birds.
• Also, what may attract farmers more towards agricultural drones is its price, an agricultural drone equipped with cameras will be available for less than $1,000.

Ready to Roll but with Some Rules

Earlier when the concept of agricultural drone was inching towards the launch, a roadblock disrupted its movement as FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) banned the commercial use of drones in US airspace citing breach of privacy. But recently, FAA has exempted companies who are manufacturing agricultural drones with some guidelines to follow. The guidelines for commercial drones proposed by FAA are as follows:

• Drones must not weigh more than 55 pounds
• It must fly within the sight of remote pilots
• Drones can be flown only during daylight
• It must stay below 500 feet in the air and must fly at less than 100 mph
• The minimum age limit for a person operating the drone is 17 years and pilots have to pass an aeronautics test and must be attested by the Transportation Security Administration

After proposing the rules to fly drones, the FAA has asked public to come-up with their suggestions and set 60 days deadline for final implementation, but industry experts expect the analysis of comments could take 18 months or longer before the rules are completed.

But one thing is for sure that drones are going to get clearance for agricultural use by the FAA soon.

Finally drones may end up better known as a green-tech instrument and help the agrarian sector with saving water, pesticides and harvest healthy crops.