As the hype fades and more growers test out drones on their own operations, what they really want from drone-focused technology is becoming clearer and raising the bar for startups in the field.
Ewan McFarlane, head of digital agronomy at Origin Enterprises in the UK, supervises 750 agronomists across western and eastern Europe and though his company has used drone services on a few occasions, it still does not own any drones.
Farmers using basic drone models, most commonly the Phantom 4 from dominant Chinese manufacturer DJI, report to McFarlane that the return of actionable information is not worth the cost of the labor to operate the machines.
To gain more relevance, either the data and analytics gleaned from drone imagery have to offer more value, or the drones need to be able to operate with less human interference.
Read the full story at www.AgFunderNews.com.