Surveying and inspecting farm land can be a difficult ordeal for a farmer. He has to either walk through acres of land or drive through it, which can take hours to complete. Rodney Watson, a procurement manager in Bell, Florida is now changing the way farmers will survey or complete other tasks at their farm.
Watson has put to use a drone that flies across the whole farm, all 13,000 acres of it, in a fraction of the time it takes for him to traverse it. Just like Watson, other farmers in the state are also looking towards using drones to make matters easier for themselves.
State legislation is gradually changing in favor of these farmers, allowing them to use drones to decrease costs and cut down the time it takes to perform mundane tasks such as analyzing crops acre upon acre.
Over the last few years, drone technology has become more accessible and effective, providing agriculturists the perfect means to improve the way they conduct business. We could have seen even more advancements in the field of Unmanned Air Vehicles, if it weren’t for stringent state regulations passed in 2013. These regulations restricted the utilization of drones in law enforcement. Nonetheless, the FAA approved a specific permit for agriculturists earlier this year.
This approval could create as many as 3,000 jobs in state of Florida and have an impact of around $600 million just in the initial couple of years of introducing drones. According to Reza Ehsani of University of Florida, technology such as drones is essential to pave the way for more cost effective farming procedures. Farmers can have the ability to spot unwelcome guests, disease, and other factors through the use of drones.
He also stated that farmers can use drones for passive and active applications. Passive would include surveying the land and monitoring the health of all crops. Active applications would be spraying a small area with pesticide or using the drone to scare off any hogs that may damage crops. With more and more farmers learning about the effective usage of drones, it will not be surprising to see the majority of them start using UAVs to their benefit in years to come.
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