E-Agriculture

Thursday 19 October: Use of drones in agriculture and rural development - part 2

Forum
e-Agriculture Learning Activity on the use of Drones in Agriculture and Rural Development – 16 to 27 October 2017

Thursday 19 October: Use of drones in agriculture and rural development - part 2

Overview

  1. Webinar on multispectral sensors and analytics in agriculture with Matthew Barre from SLANTRANGE
  2. Part 2: Overview of use of drones for agriculture and rural development

Today we will look into part two of our overview of uses of drones for agriculture and rural development. Do not forget to connect for our webinar of today at 2PM UCT / 4PM CEST!

TODAY’S WEBINAR: Airborne Agriculture Analytics with Matthew Barre from SLANTRANGE

WHEN: THURSDAY 19 OCTOBER - 2 PM UCT / 4PM CEST

TO PARTICIPATE USE THE FOLLOWING LINK: http://fao.adobeconnect.com/e-agdrones2/

Topic of the webinar: Airborne Agriculture Analytics from SLANTRANGE: A Scalable Solution for Worldwide Operations

Drone-based imaging and analytics is proving to be a powerful tool to provide new insights to agronomists and farmers in crop research, breeding, and production. The resolution and on-demand nature of drone imaging enables the generation of new information that is both more actionable and more readily available than other imaging sources such as manned aircraft and satellites. However, the effectiveness of most drone imaging solutions in agriculture is limited by 1) the lack of customized information to meet specific information needs on the farm, and 2) the network and computing infrastructure required to support their data collection and processing workflows. SLANTRANGE has created a technology platform that overcomes both of these limitations, enabling an efficient and scalable solution that can be utilized on all of the world's agriculture acres. This webinar will provide an overview of the technology as well as several examples of how the products are creating real value on farms across the globe.

Matthew Barre

Matthew Barre joined SLANTRANGE in 2016 and is currently serving as the Director of Strategic Development, overseeing all sales, marketing, business development, and strategy for the company.  Prior to joining SLANTRANGE, he was the Business Development manager for the Commercial Business Unit at Daylight Solutions, providing tunable laser-based instruments for medical, life sciences, and industrial markets.  And prior to joining Daylight Solutions, he held several program management and business development positions at General Atomics, producing imaging and optical sensor systems for unmanned aircraft. Mr. Barre holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Part 2: Overview of news, articles, case studies on experiences on the use of drones in agriculture per topic. 

F. Rural Advisory services

Drones can also be used for rural advisory services, bringing together services listed under the different thematic categories posted yesterday and today. Drones can inform a range of serviecs that can be of use for smallholder farmers to become more productive, sustainable and profitable. Drone services are often provided by entrepreneurs who have the means to invest in the equipement, learn how to use it and conduct the data analysis and extract the finings for their customers.

FAO is working towards to set up drones/Ai for RAS to address the urgent need to step up disease diagnosis globally to provide data for actionable steps to reduce yield loss. Images from phone cameras and drones will be used to classify crop diseases and build on existing AI models to automatically diagnose plant diseases. This is a type of work that will be done in collaboration with governments, CGIAR, Universities, and other organizations, including visit farms and take images of diseased crops and share them with the global community for diagnosis. Read more about articicial inteligence and drones for RAS in this pdf.

G. Biodiversity and conservation

News: Monitoring biodiversity by using drones

The use of drones is becoming more and more common to monitor changes in biodiversity and ecosystems. http://www.birdlife.org/africa/news/monitoring-biodiversity-using-drone-technology

Video: Saving the one-horned rhinos, one drone at the time

This video shows how drones are used as a new weapon against poachers. Drones can patrol easily large surfaces and thermal image cameras can be used to track poachers at night. Drones can also identify illegal settlements in natural parks.

Article: Social implications of using drones for biodiversity conservation

In this article, the author reviews the possible social impacts of using drones for conservation, including on safety, privacy, psychological wellbeing, data security and the wider understanding of conservation problems, whichc can also be applicable elsewhere. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26508350

H. Land mapping

Land administration and land rights will also be discussed on Monday 23 October with presentations on the research done for the its4land.org project by the University of Twente.

News: Tanzania Will Use Drones to Aid in Mapping, Prevent Clashes Over Land

Tanzania's government is set to deploy drones to speed up land mapping in rural areas in a bid to halt frequent, sometimes deadly clashes between farmers and cattle herders over land and scarce water resources. http://www.e-agriculture.org/news/tanzania-uses-drones-aid-mapping-and-prevent-clashes-over-land  

Video: Tanzania: Using drone technology to secure land rights

This video shows how Tanzania is using modern GPS enabled drone technology to enhance geospatial mapping, which has positive applications for a range of government projects and programs. 

Presentation: Technology in Support of Securing Property Rights: Unmanned Aerial Systems Open Source Software Crowdsourcing/Citizen Engagement

This presentation form Katherine Kelm from the World Bank and Rumyana Tonchovska from FAO,  shows how drones can be used to secure land rights by using drones. https://geospatialworldforum.org/speaker/SpeakersImages/Kathrine%20Kelm.pdf

Guide: Drones and aerial observation: New Technologies for Property Rights, Human Rights, and Global Development

This is a guide on the use of drones for Property Rights, Human Rights, and Global Development.
http://drones.newamerica.org/primer/

Blog: Drones for Land rights

This blog by Kevin Barthel, the co-founder and practice manager from the Land Alliance writes about drones and what they can mean for securing land rights. http://thelandalliance.org/2015/12/drones-for-land-rights/

News: Drones offer innovative solution for local mapping

This news talks about how the World Bank uses drones for land mapping in Kosovo. http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2016/01/07/drones-offer-innovative-solution-for-local-mapping

I. Early warning, disaster risk reduction and resilience  

Below you will find some examples related to agriculture and rural development. On Friday 27 October we will dedicate a full day to the topic of the use of drones in humanitarian action, going beyond the scope of what is done for agriculture and rural development.

Project: Potential use of drones for Desert Locust early warning

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is looking into the use of drones for strengthening the existing desert locust early warning system. Survey areas are vast, remote and often insecure and control methods inefficient and costly and drones could bring solutions to those existing problems. 

Project document: http://www.fao.org/ag/locusts/common/ecg/2245/en/Locust_drones_concept_n... / Project website: http://www.fao.org/ag/locusts/en/activ/DLIS/drones/index.html / Presentation: https://www.slideshare.net/FAOLocust/the-potential-use-of-drones-for-des... / Article: https://www.unmannedsystems.ca/rfi-drones-for-desert-locust-monitoring/ 

Drones for Desert Locust Detection from Stupendastic Films on Vimeo.

News: Swarm of drones to give early warning of flash floods

This article talks about a drone monitoring system that tracks flash floods in real time and hence buy time to escape before the waters hit https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829185-500-swarm-of-drones-to-give-early-warning-of-flash-floods/ 

Project: Drones in disaster risk reduction efforts for the agriculture sector

In an effort to stay ahead of the negative impacts of climate change, floods and typhoons on its food security, the Philippine Department of Agriculture and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have launched drones to more accurately predict where agricultural damage will be worst and quickly assess damages when disasters strike.
Video:http://www.fao.org/emergencies/resources/videos/video-detail/en/c/411843/
Related Article: http://www.fao.org/resilience/news-events/detail/en/c/395608/   

News: Drones help farmers in the Philippines prepare for climate disasters

In a bid to stay ahead of the negative impacts of climate change, floods and typhoons on food security, the Government of the Philippines and FAO have started using unmanned aerial drones to assess where farmlands are most at risk from natural disasters and quickly assess damages after they strike. http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/411596/icode/

News: FAO Myanmar promotes the use of drones to enhance disaster risk reduction

FAO Myanmar is promoting the usage of drones to enhance disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management in the agriculture sector. The project is conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MOALI) of Myanmar and the Myanmar Aerospace Engineering University (MAEU) of the Ministry of Education.
http://www.fao.org/myanmar/news/detail-events/en/c/888053/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social+media&utm_campaign=fao+facebook

This article is about the same project (FAO in Myanmar) but with more technical details and photographs of operations. http://werobotics.org/blog/2017/08/07/humanitarian-uavs-myanmar/

J. Fishery

News and video: Drones fight pirate fishing from the sky

In Belize, drones are used to monitor illegal fishing and protect endagered fish specias and conserve their biodiversity. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/drones-fight-pirate-fishing-belize-conservation/

K. Forestry

To learn more about the use of drones in Forestry you can connect this Friday 20 October for a live webinar on community monitoring of forests in Panama and to discover additional resources made available on this topic

Please let us know would you have any comments on the content or questions related to todays content or live webinar with Matthew Barre from SLANTRANGE by commenting to this post.

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Alice Van der Elstraeten
Alice Van der ElstraetenFAOPanama

We had a very interesting live session and a very full Q&A! As soon as possible we will share the recording of the presentation on this page as well as a transcript of the Q&A We will ad in the transcript the questions that were not answered during the webinar and Matthew Barre will answer them here online. 

Would you have more questions - let us know by commenting here! 

tendai leonell chiweshe
tendai leonell chiwesheThe Joshua GroupZimbabwe

Hie Matthew, drones have are really a revolutionary force. that being said, I would want to know how if by chance you can help me start my agricultural advisory services armed with the potential of drone technology. my main challenge is marrying the knowledge of the potential of drone technology in agriculture and securing the technology as we as the application of the technology. how best can you help me put this to use. 

Matthew Barre
Matthew BarreSLANTRANGEUnited States of America

Hello Tendai,

We'd be happy to talk with you to see how we might be able to help you set up your business. Feel free to contact us here: http://www.slantrange.com/contact-us/ Any information you can provide on your crops and intended business model will be helpful.

Matt

Alice Van der Elstraeten
Alice Van der ElstraetenFAOPanama

Thank you, Matthew, for your presentation. It is now online on this page, so people who have missed the session can take a look. As promised to our participants a little list of questions that remained unanswered during the Q&A of the webinar. We hope you will have some time to take a look and answer them.

  • Can we use drones without an Internet connection?
  • Can you list the specific wavelength for each Band available in the multispectral camera? For analysis, is it just using NDVI or another kind of band analysis was involved?
  • How to differentiate between plant stress and plant with disease/ nutrient deficiency?
  • What is the best flight height for drone and the best time in the day?
  • What is the best software for analyzing drone images captured by the agricultural sensor?
  • Is there any open source software to analyze drone images?
Matthew Barre
Matthew BarreSLANTRANGEUnited States of America

Hello. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak to your global network of members. I've provided answers to the remaining questions below.

  • Can we use drones without an Internet connection?
    • Most drones can be flown without and internet connection but will require a connection at some point to download the maps required to set up your flight plan. Most flight planners support setting up your flight when you have an internet connection and then flying the mission offline without a connection. As I discussed in the webinar, our sensor and analytics platform does not require an internet connection.
  • Can you list the specific wavelength for each Band available in the multispectral camera? For analysis, is it just using NDVI or another kind of band analysis was involved?
    • Our standard configuration includes 550 nm, 650 nm, 710 nm, and 850 nm. However, you can customize these bands anywhere between 410 nm and 950 nm. Our software produces 3 variants of NDVI but also several custom metrics we’ve developed internally to provide insights beyond NDVI.
  • How to differentiate between plant stress and plant with disease/ nutrient deficiency?
    • The current state of multispectral remote sensing and analytics does not typically allow you to differentiate between the various sources that may be causing stress in the plant. This is where the expertise of an agronomist is always recommended. These tools are not intended to replace an agronomist but rather make them more efficient by catching problems earlier and not missing important issues. With that said, our Smart Detection tool can be trained to look for spectral signatures of specific conditions.
  • What is the best flight height for drone and the best time in the day?
    • The flight altitude depends on what data you're trying to collect and what resolution is required to do so. For example, stand counts might be flown at 40-50 meters while stress analysis of more mature crops might be flown at 120 meters. The flight planners we use provide tools to recommend flight altitudes based on the size of your plants and the data you want to collect. While our calibration sensor normalizes measurements collected under varying lighting conditions, we still recommend flying within 2 hours of solar noon to ensure there's enough light to make accurate measurements.
  • What is the best software for analyzing drone images captured by the agricultural sensor?
    • There are many options to choose from based on your specific needs, including the analytics you require as well as your workflow, data storage, data sharing, and integration requirements. Our software, SlantView, is designed specifically for our sensors.
  • Is there any open source software to analyze drone images?
    • Yes, there are several. OpenDroneMap is one example.
Chetu Inc
Chetu IncChetuUnited States of America

The future of drones in agriculture is bright, and it's predicted to be a $1 billion industry by 2024. Custom software solutions are the best possible choice to tackle this challenge.