Collaboration aims to foster awareness around drone-enabled crop health monitoring and enhance on-farm drone application skills among the rural youths
Drone manufacturer IoTechWorld Avigation has collaborated with Switzerland headquartered company Pix4D that specializes in photogrammetry software technology to jointly offer precision farming solutions in the India. The agreement also aims to create employment opportunities for rural youth by preparing them to use drones on farms.
IoTechWorld is the manufacturer of India’s 1st DGCA Type certified agri-drone ‘AGRIBOT’ and is the pioneer in this segment. Whereas, Switzerland-headquartered Pix4D is recognized for its Pix4Dfields Software, a cutting-edge solution designed for advanced agricultural mapping. The software process RGB and multispectral data for aerial crop analysis and digital farming. Pix4D has offices in 7 countries across multiple continents meeting the requirements of these as well as neighboring countries.
Deepak Bhardwaj, Co-Founder and Director, IoTechWorld Avigation said, “We are witnessing agri-drone revolution in the country and gradually we are moving towards precision farming. Our association is to foster awareness about drone-enabled crop health monitoring.”
Anoop Upadhyay, Co-Founder and Director, IoTechWorld Avigation said, “Initially our approach involves creation of awareness among Industry, Researchers, and Academia. Subsequently, we will create awareness among farmers as well.”
Expressing the rationale behind the association, Mitul Arora, Business Development Lead – India & South Asia, Pix4D said, “IoTechWorld has drone technology and multi-spectral sensors by the name Sequoia and now they will have our photogrammetry technology too. So, through this association, a one-stop solution will be provided to all, and this will be beneficial for the govt research institutes, crop insurance and other associated specialized tasks.”
IoTechWorld and Pix4D collaboratively orchestrated the “India’s largest Workshop for Crop Health Monitoring using drones, with Cody Sokkappa of Pix4D Japan as the lead instructor. Earlier this year, the company got into a partnership with Syngenta India Pvt. Ltd. (SIPL) for the introduction of drone spraying in the agriculture sector across the country.
The agriculture sector in India is undergoing an unprecedented transformation, and technology adoption is at an unprecedented rate, thus this association will allow technology to be integrated more deeply and faster in a variety of agricultural spheres. The Government of India is planning to soon launch a scheme through which women in around 15,000 self-help groups (SHGs) would be trained to fly and repair drones.
