Smart agriculture boosts paddy farming in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s drive towards agricultural modernisation has brought to the fore children of farmers to be trained to man the smart technology – drones for paddy cultivation.
Sons and daughters of farmers have been trained under a public private partnership (PPP) initiative to man the latest technological data driven smart agriculture drones in the process of paddy cultivation.
This popular smart technology will help to make data driven decisions to optimise resource utilisation to obtain higher productivity while also ensuring sustainability.
The drone technology is being used to apply herbicides and in future the aim is to map out the areas that require increased application without carrying it out in uniformity.
This will help to identify weeds based on satellite information to apply the herbicide accordingly as per the requirement on the field.
Some private sector agencies like Browns, CIC and DIMO use this drone technology for their own farming and Kenilworth has engaged in a public private partnership with the government to provide drones to 64 agrarian centres to be used when required by farmers. These will be manned on the ground by 64 trained personnel who are capable of handling the drones in lifting it off the ground and in using the scientific know-how on the use of application of herbicides.
At present these drones are available at Rs.800 per acre and the demand has increased greatly for these on the paddy fields. At the moment there are about 150 drones available under this PPP.
The Department of Agriculture (DOA), the Sri Lanka Air Force, and the Civil Aviation Authority have been involved in establishing the Version 1 guidelines in the use of these drones for agriculture.
In time these drones will be used following extensive research for the purpose of seed broadcasting as well.
Under the usual application of herbicide the requirement is for 300-500 litres of water based on walking speed but with the use of drones the requirement will be for only 20-40 litres of water. The real advantage will be when spot spraying or the spraying of herbicides could be carried out by identifying the exact location of weed growth in the paddy fields.
This smart agricultural technology has been used for the first time in the dry zone during this Yala season in Sri Lanka and will recommence during the Maha season as well.
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