Ukraine is looking at agricultural drone technology to ensure it continues to be a major player in the global grains market despite escalating geopolitical tensions.
Robotic Agrosystems, one of the largest drone service providers in Ukraine, recently ordered 100 agricultural drones from XAG. The company expects to help cultivate more than 500,000 hectares of crops with drone sprayers in the 2022 farming season.
As the “breadbasket of Europe” and a major exporter of grains and oilseeds, Ukraine’s interest in agricultural drones is not surprising. Against the background of rising fuel prices and climate change, farmers are increasingly looking for cost-saving, nimble tools to manage crops.
Drones with autonomous operations not only relieve human labor, but their precision application feature also helps to cut down the use of pesticides. This is why, in 2021 also, many farms used drones for a variety of purposes, including weeding, fertilization, pest and disease control, and desiccation. To date, aerial technology has served a diversity of major crops, such as wheat, barley, corn, rapeseed, and sunflower, that are the cornerstone of the country’s agricultural export.
Igor Tchaikovsky, the owner of Robotic Agrosystems, says his team cultivated 10,000 hectares of land last year with a much smaller XAG drone fleet and received positive feedback from farmers. Explaining why he has placed what is being called “the single largest order of drones for agricultural use in the history of Ukraine,” Tchaikovsky says:
The crews worked very intensively during the last season and almost around the clock. But we were still forced to turn down most of our customers because demands exceeded our technical capabilities. Therefore, investing in so many drones is not an impulsive decision. The market is growing and will continue to thrive.
XAG recently made its fully autonomous agricultural drone, the V40, available globally. This drone constitutes 60% of the order placed by Tchaikovsky’s company. The drone comes equipped with a 16-liter liquid tank and a 25-liter granular container, capable of spraying up to 10 liters or spreading up to 40 kg seeds or fertilizers in one minute. It can also be used to conduct mapping and broadcast operations.
Read more: XAG unveils 2022 autonomous drone lineup
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