[Anchor Lead]
As the technology improves and prices go down, unmanned drones are being employed in a growing number of applications. Here’s a new one. Drones are used to check in on crop conditions with one sweep.
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A small drone flies over a high-altitude cabbage farm situated 800 meters above sea level. The unmanned aircraft is recording the growth condition of cabbages in the field. It takes only about 25 minutes to record the vast cabbage farm, which measures one million square meters wide.
[Soundbite] Lee Gyeong-do(Research Fellow, RDA) : "The drone can obtain high-resolution images of objects smaller than 5 centimeters. Technological advances have made it much easier to control the drone and obtain such images."
Using a drone can save time and offer greater convenience than having farmers personally go out to the fields to check on crop conditions with their own eyes. The photos and sample materials taken by a drone also enable a sweeping analysis of crop information, such as cultivation area, harvesting time, and growth anomalies. The gathered data is provided immediately to pertinent agencies and cabbage farmers.
[Soundbite] Lee Jeong-man(Cabbage farmer) : "They provide detailed evidence of various farming issues such as supply-demand adjustments."
The Rural Development Administration plans to expand the use of drones for the collection of crop information to include onions and garlic.
