The New Face Of Farming

Drones could well change Asian agriculture. These aerial vehicles can be controlled from the ground, and have received a great deal of attention for their ability to do work that is dangerous or tedious for farmers

- Wong Yi Wei

In Asia, rice crops and livestock have been culturally significant agricultural assets for millennia, and across the region traditional farming methods, unchanged for centuries, are still being used. But all this is set to change as these age-old systems are displaced by the use of drones. One report put the global value of the agricultural services and labour being replaced by drone-powered solutions at over USD32 billion in 2016.

As early as the 1980s, Japan integrated drones into rice farming in rural areas that had few farm workers due to the aging population. Today, tasks like spraying pesticides, which are detrimental to farmers’ health, can be handled by drones. At places like Ichikawa Farm in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, drones are already being used for organic crop dusting and recording factors such as crop growth.