Drones are now doing a lot more than dropping bombs and shooting video. A new generation of programmable, autonomous drones has arrived, and it’s powering an agritech revolution in Asia. Sabah Softwoods, a tree plantation in Malaysia, is using smart drone tech to kill weeds in its vast timber woodlands. It bought a custom drone from Malaysia-based enterprise Poladrone to spray weeds so that soon this task can be automated, and their staff won’t have to do it.

“Spraying chemicals by hand is slow,” says Sabah Softwoods Survey and Mapping Manager Albert Ku. “Especially on challenging terrain.” Depending on the landscape and crop, it can take a worker all day to spray 0.65 acres of farmland with pesticides. A drone can perform this same task in just two minutes. Using drones also means that farmhands don’t need to come into direct contact with pesticides and other chemicals, a practice that a recent study found left 70% of farmworkers with symptoms of acute pesticide poisoning.

Other farms in Asia now use drones to optimize crop watering and increase yield per acre. Drone sensors pick up data and run it through machine learning algorithms, giving farmers valuable operational insights. Many modern agricultural drones don’t even need a trained pilot; they can be programmed to follow preset flight patterns, and they can use cloud-based management software to make in-flight adjustments as needed.

Source Credit: Tech for Impact Asia