In Maharashtra's Sangli District farmer deploys drone service to spray fertiliser in fields saving time and money

New Delhi: It has been a year since the Union Government gave a green signal to use drones for agricultural practices and since then, many companies have come forward to provide machines which can be used in this particular sector.

Recently, pictures of a farmer based out of Maharashtra’s Sangli district came out showing how his team using drones in his fields to spray growth promoters. Sharad Awati said that previously he would employ over eight men to spray growth promoters over his field and it took them an entire day to complete the task. However, this time he decided to use a drone which he procured from an entrepreneur Swapnil Walwekar.

Awati said the decision of using drones not only reduced the spraying time but it helped him save a considerable amount of money. He said “Overall, it took just two hours to finish the job. Also, usage of chemicals was less.”

Awati and his family own eight acres of land where they grow sugarcane. “If we had to employ manual labour, the total cost of spraying an acre comes close to around Rs 780, while drone operators charge Rs 700 per acre.”

A silent revolution has already begun in Sangli as many cane growers are now inclining towards using such machines to spray growth promoters and other pesticides, insecticides and weedicides. Many entrepreneurs are coming forward to provide drone services to farmers.

Sanjay Kumar Patil, the cane development officer of the mill-drone company said that as per their experiments, spraying of growth promoters and other essential stuff through drones on the crops can be started just after 90 days of planting the crop. Additionally, the usage of drones’ results in saving the inputs by 50%. He even mentioned, “For mature crops, drones are the best option- manual labour can’t reach the tops to spray in case of woolly aphids, which is a major concern this season.”

At present, the mill has four drones and they’ve successfully sprayed around 12,00 acres of land to date. This technology of drones is now being used in other neighbouring areas as well and the mill is charging differently based in the travel charges, “For our farmers, we charge at the rate of Rs 600/acre and if we travel outside, we charge Rs 700/acre.”