The automation of Brazilian agriculture is allowing a series of advances in the sector. In this context, drones have achieved rapid evolution.
Increasingly more elaborate and accessible, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Vants), controlled remotely, are very useful in precision agriculture and in several other agricultural monitoring and management activities.
“This technology (based on Artificial Intelligence) will increasingly allow the management of agriculture per square meter, and no longer per hectare, bringing efficiency, sustainability and profitability”, says Marcos Fava Neves, director of the National Agricultural Society (SNA) and professor at USP/Ribeirão Preto.
The National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac) currently has 77.197 registered drones in its registry, 29.596 of which are for non-recreational use. Of this total, 1.205 are classified as aero-agricultural vehicles.
Furthermore, the use of drones in the area of biological control is increasing, and many companies are already investing in this segment.
One of the biggest bottlenecks in biological control, according to entrepreneur Gustavo Scarpari, is the technology for applying biodefensive products.
According to him, drones can become very functional in an activity that poses risks to workers, who need to correctly apply pesticides in places that are often inaccessible.
“Drones are capable of carrying out this work safely and efficiently. In the bulk release of biological agents, for example, there are vehicles capable of covering 600 hectares in just one day, with high quality of application”, highlights the agronomist and founder of Sardrones.
The executive also states that the Vant's are very efficient in covering sloped areas and fruit growing areas, reaching places where planes or tractors cannot reach. “It’s a great tool that’s here to stay,” highlights Scarpari.
“Biological control will grow a lot in Brazil due to drones. I believe that all control in the future will be done only with these vehicles.” For producers, adds Scarpari, drones represent a possibility of using biological control on a large scale.
Of the 79.246 million hectares planted in Brazil, according to the Systematic Survey of Agricultural Production (LSPA), by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), around 20 million hectares, according to the biological industry, are treated with biodefensive products. .
According to Dunham Trimmer, the main research company focused on global organic agricultural markets, the segment is expected to generate more than US$5 billion worldwide in 2020, a jump of US$2 billion compared to the previous year. While the sector grows at around 10% per year in other countries, in Brazil the pace is even faster, reaching more than 15%.
In 2019, CropLife Brasil estimated a market of R$675 million, representing a 31% growth compared to 2018. “In a coordinated manner, biodefensive companies are approaching the producer to offer information and technical assistance. This causes interest in biological solutions to increase”, explains Amália Borsari, executive director of biologicals at CropLife Brasil.
In addition to optimizing biological control, drones, among several functions, are also capable of collecting images of plantations, to be later processed on land.
“The analysis of the collected images, based on sophisticated algorithms, allows us to identify needs and opportunities to improve land use, correct soils, adjust irrigation levels, etc.”, explains Jorge Ávila, director of Innovation at SNA.
“The objective is to optimize spending on fertilizers, irrigation, seeds and other inputs and increase productivity. Once the necessary actions are identified, traditional equipment executes the programmed operations”.
In turn, Scarpari notes that this technology continues to evolve rapidly, and cites as an example the project developed by the company Xmobots, which launched a drone powered by gasoline, allowing a longer flight time (up to an hour), unlike vehicles battery-powered, which regularly require recharging.
“In the future, which is already knocking on the door, drones, ground-based sensors and processors will generate commands to be executed by autonomous equipment for irrigation, soil correction, seed and agricultural pesticide dispersion and for any other productivity-promoting actions that can be conceived”, adds Jorge Ávila.
According to him, “this will save human labor and considerably reduce the consumption of water, energy and materials that generate waste that is harmful to the environment”.
The challenge, for the director of SNA, is to connect these systems to the internet. “The analysis of information collected locally can be enriched and facilitated when integrated with knowledge and information generated remotely.”
In terms of technical standards, Scarpari believes that the work carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture, still in the analysis and discussion phase, should guarantee drones a well-structured regulation. Anac and the Airspace Control Department (Decea) also establish standards for the operation of aerial vehicles.
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