(9 Sep 2017) LEADIN:
Cambodia's first commercial drone company is promising farmers higher yields if they embrace new technology.
However resistance to modern technologies like drones in favour of traditional farming practices remains a big challenge.
STORYLINE:
Cambodia's first commercial drone company, SM Waypoint, is offering farmers high-tech solutions to increase their yields.
Set up in 2015 by American pilot Jimmy Jacks, all seven of the company's drone pilots received specialised training in Australia and Hong Kong and they all have degrees in geology, mining or engineering.
Different types of drones are used for different purposes, says Jacks who is the only foreigner on the team.
"This is a commercial drone. It is made for use in agriculture. It is a quadcopter meaning it has four propeller system. Underneath the platform you will see this container. The container is for aerial application of fluids. It can, it can contain pesticides, fertilisers, anything you would spray, with a human walking through the fields with a pack on his back, very very dangerous applications of pesticides, this can do much, much safer," says Jacks.
Cambodian farmers often use no protective gear when spraying their crops with potentially hazardous chemicals.
Jacks says using drones for spraying could help eliminate any risks to their health.
However, the higher costs involved means it is not a viable option for most of the country's cash-strapped small farmers.
The drones can also offer a bird's eye view of how an entire crop is faring. SM Waypoint's most popular product measures the 'Normalised Difference Vegetation Index' of crops which measures their health using specialised cameras.
"Ok so let's take a look at our parts of drone," says Business Development Leader Mak Syna. "And you can see this is the auto-pilot that control all the drone. And this is the part that we put the camera here and we have two camera to put at the same time - RGB and NIR."
The RGB camera fitted inside this AS-III fixed-wing drone captures the amount of near-infrared and red light emitted by the plants.
When there is healthy vegetation, it picks up higher amounts of infrared and lower amounts of red light, making it easy to spot areas where plants are stressed.
The information can help increase yields by an average of around 10 percent per year, says Business Development Leader Mak Syna.
"We focus primarily on agriculture helping farmers by increasing their crop yields," he says. "So how do we increase their yields? Our equipment is the latest modern technology that can inspect the crop's health in the fields, allowing farmers to take early corrective action where necessary."
The AS-III launches off a catapult, ascending rapidly at 25 metres per second.
With a 3.3-metre wingspan it can soar at an altitude of 3,000 metres and it has a range of 180 kilometres, covering up to 1,800 hectares in a single flight.
The drone follows a pre-programmed flight plan, producing images with a resolution up to 3.8 centimetres from high in the air.
SM Waypoint currently charges US$4:50 to analyse one hectare which they say boosts the annual value of yields by around $20 per hectare on average.
But despite the increased yields and profits, the upfront costs involved means drones are not affordable for most small farmers in Cambodia, although the technology makes sense for larger farms.
Resistance to new farming techniques in favour of traditional practices is a big challenge, says UAV Team Leader Koeurn Chenda.
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