Drone aircraft are a natural fit for data-hungry precision agriculture, helping growers fine-tune their operations and maximize income, says private consulting group Informa, which estimates the gains at $12 an acre for corn, $2.60 for soybeans and $2.25 for wheat. For the near future, the top areas of use for the small, nimble craft will be crop scouting, crop insurance and 3-D mapping, according to Matt Harrington, who conducted the research for Informa, and Justin Oberman, president of Measure, a company that provides drone services.
With time, drones also could be used to monitor livestock as well as crops, to check on irrigation systems, to spray pesticides onto targeted parts of a field, and in estimating acreage and yields. Uses such as pesticide application would require larger equipment and could face more regulatory hurdles than a small drone carrying a camera or sensors.
Larger operators, those with more than 2,000 acres, are best suited to drones because they make it easier to keep a close eye on conditions over a lot of territory, said Oberman.
The advent of drones has generated a lot of hoopla in agriculture but few concrete ways to put them to work or tell if they are worth the money. The largest U.S. farm group joined Measure in releasing the study, and said a calculator would be posted on the Internet so corn, wheat and soybean growers could estimate the benefits of drones. Julie Anna Potts, of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the study and the online calculator “will help make drones a reality for farmers and ranchers.”
Crop scouting can boost yields and reduce costs by matching more closely the use of fertilizer, herbicides and plant population to soil productivity, which varies across a field, said Harrington. With use of yield monitors, field maps and variable-rate applicators, precision agriculture aims to cover large tracts while paying close attention to conditions in each portion of a field.
While the briefing at AFBF headquarters focused on benefits to growers, Oberman said Measure was pursuing the crop insurance and mapping sectors, too. Farmers could purchase drone services in the same way they now contract with custom harvesters or other companies with expertise in a specialized field, he said. “Our view is, if you fly for yourself, you’re not running your farm.”
The FAA began allowing commercial use of drones in late 2014, so 2015 may be “the year agriculture drones take off,” says Fortune. “For the first time agriculture drones will legally be able to gather widespread data across an entire growing season, allowing companies to test their business models and technologies together for the first time—and ideally make a profit in the process.”