
Shankaranand Chougule invested in a drone due to labor shortages in agriculture and his prior experience as a cane development officer in a cooperative sugar mill near his village, Madhyal, in Kolhapur district’s Gadhinglaj taluka.
In 2022, I came across YouTube videos about using drones in agriculture and considered it a good alternative. As a farmer cultivating cane, soybean, and rice on my 5-acre property, I was intrigued. Last year, the Maharashtra government became one of the first in the country to subsidize drone procurement. Under this scheme, agriculture graduates and Common Hiring Centers (CHC) receive a 50% subsidy for purchasing drones for agricultural purposes.
Agriculture division
Given the newness of the technology, the agriculture department initially set a modest goal for the 2022-23 fiscal year. They aimed to distribute a total of 38 drones (25 for Community Health Centers and 13 for agriculture graduates). However, they received a staggering 236 applications, and through an open lottery, 102 were selected, far surpassing the modest target.
Until date, 9 drones have been procured and eight candidates have acquired their subsidy.
Chougule was the primary within the state who acquired the drone in April. Since then, he mentioned he has sprayed 50 plus acres of farmland round his space. “Principally farmers have known as me for spraying pesticides or pesticides over their cane and soybean,” he mentioned.
Drones not solely scale back time
Being an early adopter, Chougule is fast to level out numerous benefits of the machine. “Drones not solely scale back time, but in addition scale back the quantity of chemical compounds for use,” he mentioned. The droplet sizes which the drone sprays are in microns thus it permits environment friendly spraying. “In our space, farmers normally spray round 40-50 litres of widespread pesticides like Chlorpyrifos, Cypermethrin on one acre. Nonetheless, utilizing the drone, the identical space was lined in simply 10 litres. The primary query they requested me was if I had sprayed something in any respect,” he mentioned.
Drones are utilised for spraying fungicides
Drones are utilised for spraying fungicides like Carbondazim, Tebuconazole, herbicides like Metribuzin, Dichlorophenoxy, acetic acid together with the above talked about pesticide. One other benefit was the time — as an alternative of round three to 4 hours to spray over an acre, a drone can end the work in simply 10-12 minutes. Most drone operators cost between Rs 500-800 per acre as spraying costs.
Twenty four-year-old Vivek Apte from Ranegaon village in Shevgaon taluka of Ahmednagar district is one other drone-entrepreneur who took benefit of the state’s scheme.
It was in Might when he purchased his drone, and has since then sprayed over greater than 100 acres of farmland. Coming from a household of huge landholders, Apte’s household owns 35 acres, the place they develop crops like cane, cotton and soybean. “Drones are extra environment friendly than regular spraying. Because of the droplets that are within the dimension of micron, the chemical compounds kind a skinny movie over the crop and thus diffusion is significantly better,” he mentioned.
Each Apte and Chougule transport their drones of their vehicles.
Being early days, drones have some bumps which grassroot degree customers are fast to level out. The primary bump which Chougule mentioned was that drones, although straightforward to function, require coaching. “On the face of it drones are straightforward to function, however issues can go flawed if settings change even barely. Additionally spare components have to be extra simply obtainable,” he mentioned.
One other bump which entrepreneurs need the federal government and corporations to deal with is to take steps to lift consciousness about drones. “Younger farmers have understood the benefit, however rather more have to be completed for extra folks to just accept it,” he mentioned. Additionally SOP for spraying fertilisers is but to be formulated by state agriculture universities.
Drones have discovered acceptance in sugar mills, with a number of mills having taken steps to make sure their farmers learn about its benefits. Mills have additionally tied up with drone service suppliers to start operations of their space. Mills in Sangli and Kolhapur have taken the lead on this matter.
For farmers this new mechanisation has come at a time when most of them are going through labour scarcity.
Sachin Patil, a cane grower from Ambe village in Pandharpur taluka of Solapur district had employed a drone to spray 6 acres of his cane a month in the past. “The operation was over inside an hour. If I had employed labour it might have taken virtually two days. Drones definitely assist,” he mentioned.