MUMBAI, 17 July 2016 :  India is working on using drone technology for agriculture use, Sudarshan Bhagat, Indian minister of state for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare informed the parliament.

Speaking on this development, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) through the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) has formulated a collaborative research project entitled “SENSAGRI: SENsor based Smart AGRIculture” involving six partner Institutes (Agriculture & IT) to be funded by Information Technology Research Academy (ITRA), Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY), Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT).

The major objective is to develop indigenous prototype for drone based crop and soil health monitoring system using hyper spectral remote sensing (HRS) sensors. This technology could also be integrated with satellite-based technologies for large scale applications, Bhagat adds.

Drone technology based unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for agriculture has ability for smooth scouting over farm fields, gathering precise information and transmitting the data on real time basis. This capability could be used for the benefit of farming sector at regional/local scale for assessing land and crop health; extent, type and severity of damage besides issuing forewarning, post-event management and settlement of compensation under crop insurance schemes. Countries like US, Canada are using drones in agricultural sector. But India still needs to develop it own agricultural drone technology. Drones have become very popular in India and one can find agricultural drones in many e-commerce website. There are many companies in India which offers agricultural drone for sale or on rent.