Projections show that feeding a world the population of 9.1 billion people in 2050 would require raising overall food production by some 70% between 2005/07 and 2050.

Projections show that feeding a world the population of 9.1 billion people in 2050 would require raising overall food production by some 70% between 2005/07 and 2050.

In order to keep up with increasing demand, optimizing farm yield in a way that is sustainable and prevents environmental damage becomes critical. Challenges such as climate change make it harder to grow crops due to an increasing number of unexpected weather events all over the world. As an ecosystem there is a need for close collaboration between governments, technology and industry to collectively overcome these challenges.

UAVs and its associated technologies today can provide some solutions to these challenges. Planning Before farmers can actually sow the seeds, there is tremendous scope for increasing productivity from the same piece of land. In order to keep up with the increasing demand, we have to utilize available lands more effectively to increase production. Traditionally farmers have relied upon satellite imagery and historic land maps with contour and soil information. The challenge with these approaches is that they often don’t reflect the ground reality. Manual inspections of large pieces of land can be time-consuming and people often have to resort to sampling which can portray an inaccurate picture. Leveraging associated technologies with UAVs

• Creating 3D models of the terrain which can be used for

• Drawing contour maps

• Analysing drainage patterns

• Identifying the slope of the land

• Scope of work estimation for preparing the land

• Create a repository with 100% data for future use

• 3D models can help to efficiently plan for water usage during the season by analysing the health of existing water management assets like dams, trenches and water storage areas

• UAVs equipped with NDVI cameras to map soil fertility of the land

Land preparation

UAVs can not only help in designing and planning to optimize the farm, they can also help in monitoring the activities for preparing the land for crop growth.

UAV operations can enable farmers to quickly detect risks associated with construction activities, allowing rapid intervention and thus minimizing additional budget expenditure with minimum personnel deployed on the ground. UAVs can additionally substitute for certain time-consuming tasks which were traditionally done by humans.

For example, UAVs can spray fertilizers in different parts of the land. UAV operators can exactly define the path for the UAV and the amount of fertilizer to be sprayed in which area thus quantifying certain tasks which couldn’t have been quantified before. Leveraging associated technologies with UAVs:

• Creating GIS enabled 3D models of the terrain to compare against planned activities and take corrective actions

• Real time remote visibility of the site through IoT devices can help better utilize the manpower of field engineers

• Using IoT to transmit the fertilizer spray patterns to a handheld device to facilitate better man and machine interactions

• 3D modelling and artificial intelligence can help monitor live progress on the ground of various activities involved in land preparation like the construction of continuous contour trenches and construction of water management assets

Crop growth

Once the later stage of a crop life cycle is reached, one of the main objectives of the farmer is to keep the plants alive and healthy, which requires constant field monitoring. UAV monitoring possibilities are constantly being enhanced, providing the opportunity to reduce the risk of crop failure. As seen earlier, crop spraying is another area for UAV applications in agriculture. UAVs can scan the ground, and maintain the right distance from the crops to spray the correct amount of liquid, modulating spraying in real time for even coverage. This will increase the efficiency of spraying, reducing the number of excess chemicals penetrating into groundwater. The Indian arm of a Global Agrochemicals and seeds manufacturer has used UAVs has partnered with UAV providers to monitor the health of its farms in the state of Andhra Pradesh Leveraging associated technologies with UAVs

• Using multi-spectral cameras can help measure the amount of light that the crops are reflecting. Depending on this information corrective actions can be taken in precise locations using GIS coordinates

• Image classification using the output from UAVs can help identify the health of the crop

• Detecting weeds and large insects on the crops using artificial intelligence and high definition cameras on UAVs

• UAVs can even act as first responders in case of wildfires to estimate the spread of the fire and the direction of the spread to minimize damage to the crop