Experts are highly excited about the value that use of drones would bring to agricultural fields. Despite the fact that most of the drone-based projects in India are at the pilot scale, there is a growing buzz about their enormous potential to optimize the use of inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, water, and pesticides more efficiently.

“Drones are a very promising segment and it is good to see the Government of India coming up with standard operating procedures including their use in agriculture. This is an important step to strengthen the drone ecosystem in India.

As we are aware, agrochemicals have been an important part of crop protection practices and it has mostly relied on manual spraying. However, it has its own restrictions including cost of labor and coverage of land. As per a study, the application of agrochemicals through drones is just 10% of what is otherwise used manually.  Look at the amount of time saved, 90% of agrochemicals are saved and efficacy would be far better with use of drones,” said Hemendra Mathur, Co-founder, ThinkAg

 “In India, adoption levels can increase significantly but as now most of it is in the pilot stage. Each crop has its own requirement as per their height and we need to build the drone operations accordingly. We see significant interest from startups and only time will tell whether it will expand at a big scale or remain limited to certain locations. Battery use and its charging is a hardware challenge and another one is training rural youth in handling drones. We therefore will have to set up drone academies both online and offline to build the capacity,” added Mathur.

 Mathur recently spoke along with other leading experts who deliberated at the NextGen Chemicals & Petrochemicals Summit 2022 organized by the Indian Chemical News on July 21-22, 2022. The session, ‘Role of drones in agriculture’ was moderated by Yogesh Joshi, Head-Content & Strategy, Indian Chemical News.

“During our college days we were experimenting a lot and during our field visits we came to know about the issues faced by farmers. During any pest attack or plant nutrient deficiency they would go to a nearby retailer and get the recommendations. There was a clear disconnect between the industry and farmers and how the technology access was limited. We started at the small scale by partnering with experts like Dr KD Singh who is a PhD from IIT Bombay and has deep experience in using drones, now we are now working with 6,000 farmers across various locations, providing both spraying services as well as drone consultancy,” said Amandeep Panwar, Founder & CEO, BharatRohan.

“One of the major USPs of the drones is to identify disease outbreak and nutrient deficiency in the plants and we do this using the technology called hyper spectral imaging. This helps in determining any chemical change within the plants at minuscule level. We give advisory to farmers on the basis of that and our recommendations help them in better productivity. We work with the entire value chain, be it institutions, agrochemical companies, and seed companies who can use the drone based advisory from us and disseminate it to the farmers,” added Panwar.

 “In the last few years, we have been involved in spraying pesticides on over 12,000 acres of land across India. One of the things we learned is that the farming community in India is used to working in a certain style. They have their own notions about spraying of pesticides such as enough wetness of soil is considered successful spraying. Also, they are used in backpacks and other kinds of sprayers where pesticides are mixed in about 200 litres of water whereas now just 20 litres of water are more than enough. Whether you are giving nutrients or doing crop protection, the amount of water usage has come down by 90%. It has been difficult to make them understand new technologies and frankly speaking there are many who have negative perceptions about drones. It is a big leap of faith for them and hence a lot of awareness needs to be created,” said Raja Raman, Investor & Board Advisor, Dhaksha Unmanned System.

“We used a three pronged approach to create awareness. We partnered with agrochemical companies and did several trials across India so that word spreads within the farming communities. Second way is to establish a national network of agricultural equipment dealers who acted as advocates of change to spread the knowledge. Third is that we are collecting extraordinary levels of data in terms of efficacy. For example, if you do a spray on a cotton field, the data must show whether it is working or not? Fourth strategy is to leverage the established organizations such as institutes and FPOs. Demonstrations by Krishi Vigyan Kendras will gradually build the momentum,” added Raman.

“Drones are certainly much needed in the areas where we have difficulty in reaching out and also the issues such as lack of electricity. These will come handy in a place with difficult terrain such as Uttarakhand forests where there are frequent fires. Drones can be used to extinguish the fire in such cases, therefore avoiding any further casualties. In emergency situations when somebody falls off the cliff, the person may be saved with the help of a drone. I have come across a group of farmers and technology providers who are using drones to ensure proper coverage of cow dung balls in areas where it is impossible to do it manually,” said Gaurav Kestwal, Founder, Himalayan Farmers Group for Aromatic & Medicinal Plants.

The NextGen Chemicals & Petrochemicals Summit 2022 was supported by the leading names of the industry. The platinum partner was Elliot Group. Regulatory Knowledge Partner was GPC. Gold partners of the event included Ingenero, Premier Tech, Carbanio and Deepak Nitrite. Among the associate partners were PIP and Huntsman. The industry partners of the event included AMAI, Croplife India, and ACFI.