Drone spraying, monitoring of cotton and chilli crops to soon begin in State

Drone-spraying and monitoring of cotton and chilli crops will soon begin in Telangana, with the State government inviting startups to participate in a pilot project.

The initiative, being taken up by the Department of Agriculture, Prof Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, the Department of Information Technology, and Research and Innovaction Circle of Hyderabad, will see startups entrusted with designing solutions that can improve sustainability and deliver benefits for farmers.

The project will be implemented on 25 acres each of cotton and chilli crops, and aims to showcase how technology can transform cultivation practices.

Startups are expected to work on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and the internet of things into drone operations. These tools are intended to carry out high-precision spraying and provide better monitoring of crop health. The drones are expected to be capable of covering six to ten acres an hour. The spraying accuracy is expected to be 95%.

The government has underscored that the pilot project goes beyond automation. The larger idea and outcome is to assist farmers to reduce costs, minimise pesticide use, and reach higher profits through farming that gathers and utilises accurate data.

If the project is successful and extended across districts, the government expects a significant reduction on the dependence on manual labour, better management of irrigation and fertiliser use, and improved soil health.

As part of the pilot, startups will also have to develop mobile applications and dashboards that make data accessible to farmers, agriculture officers and administrators. Farmers will be able to track spraying schedules, irrigation and crop health, while officials will have access to real-time insights on the progress of the initiative.

The project is part of the Government of India’s National e-Governance Plan in Agriculture that aims to promote the use of emerging technologies in farming.

In order to introduce new technologies in farming, the Agriculture department and the Information Technology, Electronics and Communications department have decided to select startups registered with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade to run a pilot project on spot spraying with drones under the National e-Governance Plan in Agriculture scheme.