Farmers getting drone assistance for crop dusting

Farmers in China will soon be able to hail drones for crop dusting from the comfort of their home thanks to a sharing service platform expected to be rolled out in September, Hubei Daily reported.

The platform, developed by a subsidiary of Eagle Brother Co Ltd based in Wuhan, Hubei province, can track farmland locations on demand. Farmers can customize services by providing information on crop types, farm sizes and kinds of pesticides they need.

Drone operators will be sent to farmland at an appointed time to spray pesticides as requested after online payment is finished, according to Li Caisheng, founder of the company.

Utilizing drones to disperse pesticides is believed to be more efficient and safer than the conventional method of crop spraying, cutting down water consumption by 90 percent, pesticide volume by 40 percent and boosting productivity 50 times over.

In Hubei province alone, about 1,000 drones have been employed to improve farming.

China is home to more than 300 million people working in the agricultural sector, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2017.