Farmers in Haryana have gone beyond merely employing drones; they have customised them to cover 50 per cent more area with the same pesticide quantity, while maintaining effectiveness. Although this approach has a time lag, it is offset by reduced water consumption.
But drone operators are grappling with the challenges of operational costs.
“Even since I was selected to use drone for spraying pesticides on my sunflower a year-and-a-half back as a demonstration by the manufacturing company, I have been hiring a drone as it is more effective. Besides, it relieved us of the tension to find labour for the spray work,” said Karan Singh, a young farmer of Bairsal in Karnal district who is said to be the first to use drone in Haryana in 2021.
Haryana is a Green Revolution State and the farmers have always been keen to experiment with new technology. Jitender Koshik, a consultant in agri technologies, said while drone usage is spreading, cost of spares needs to come down and capital investment needs to be monitored for sustainable use as it needs to be recycled every 4-5 years.
Singh, who was earlier using manual labour for spraying, experienced crop damage. But, drones effectively sprayed nano-urea and a plant stimulator in sunflower crops, offering an easier solution due to plant height. While Singh spent ₹600/acre for potatoes, other farmers said costs ranged from ₹500-600/acre in various crops.
Lokesh Kumar, a service provider in Kurukshetra district having 11 drones procured with the help of Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) scheme, said he has already hired 10 pilots and spending ₹20,000/month to pay them. He said a single drone can cover 10 acres a day and can fetch ₹3,000 per day from vegetable crops and it is higher in case of other crops. Besides, there will be five rounds of sprays in a vegetable crop, he added.
Gurvinder Singh Goldy, a former sarpanch of Rajgarh village also in Karnal, has been advocating the use of drones as he himself has tried it last year on his 35 acres. “First benefit is that instead of using 100-200 litres to spray, only 10-20 litres water is required in drone. Secondly, the pesticides are not falling on the ground and the foliar sprays from top help plants to resist any pest attack,” Goldy said.