How the use
of drones
in agriculture
can help with
precision farming

Farmers, keen to take advantage of technological advances, are increasingly turning to the use of drones in agriculture to boost yield and profits amid multitudinous challenges including climate change, labor shortages, shrinking profits and the increasing occurrence of pests and disease. This trend is driving the agricultural drone market, which is forecast to grow annually by 18.14% to nearly $3.7 billion by 2027.

One of the major uses of drones is in the growing movement toward precision farming, also known as precision agriculture. Precision farming is a management approach that focuses on near-real-time observation, measurement and responses to changeability in crops, fields and animals. Drone farming can support this by enabling faster and more accurate asset data collection and analytics.

Precision spraying drones can distribute pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides and fungicides uniformly, avoiding over- or under-spraying. A report from Deloitte estimates that precision agriculture can reduce fertilizer use by as much as 40%. A single drone can spray as much as 40 acres of crops per hour, easing labor shortages while avoiding more hazardous—and less accurate—human distribution. Drones can also replace low-flying piloted airplanes, reducing costs. Drones have even replaced pesticides as a way to deal with a widespread locust swarm.

Farmers that know their fields intimately can manage them more precisely and plan better for problems that may occur. Accurate mapping by ultra-high-resolution camera-equipped drones can omit the guesswork and save time compared with doing it by hand. Sensor-equipped drones can measure topography and generate highly detailed 3D maps that can be used with artificial intelligence and analytics platforms. Combining these, farmers can quickly identify challenges such as soil erosion or irrigation issues, giving them the power of knowledge for better plot management. What's more, advances in technology now allow for more granular imaging, down to leaf level, for even greater insights.

Thermal-sensor-equipped drones in agriculture can help to better manage and protect livestock by accurately counting cattle and herds in mere minutes. When an abnormal body temperature—a possible indicator of disease and illness—is recorded, the farmer can be alerted. In the same vein, drone farming in this way can also identify broken fences and other infrastructure that could allow livestock to escape.

Water is vitally important to the health of crops. Routine overhead spectral or thermal imaging with drones can help track irrigation needs, informing farmers of which plants or parts of the field are getting sufficient or insufficient irrigation and helping them identify better irrigation methods to reduce the waste of this precious resource.

Healthy crops equals revenues for farmers. Cellular-connected drones with multi-spectral cameras can collect critical information about the condition of these valuable assets. Drone farming can create vegetation index maps that can use near-infrared light techniques to identify healthy and unhealthy plants using cloud-based video analytics and AI. These insights, collected regularly and quickly by drones, can be a vital resource amid increasingly erratic climates caused by global warming.

Routine mapping and data collection using advanced drones in agriculture can enable farmers to quickly and indisputably evidence losses and damages for insurance claims when they occur. Such accurate data can also inform better predictions around the reduction of estimated yields, taking the pain out of insurance claims.