Unmanned aircraft are increasingly present in the field, a market that is growing at a rapid pace
There's a problem in the cane field. An infestation of sugarcane borer larvae, a type of moth, has been identified at a point in the middle of the field. If it isn't controlled quickly, the pest could spread and affect a larger part of the production. The solution, fortunately, comes from above: biodegradable capsules containing small wasps of the Cotesia flavipes species - which fight the larvae - are dropped at the exact location of the infestation by a drone, controlled remotely using a laptop.
This scene is already a reality in several sugarcane plantations in the country. Drones - also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs - are increasingly present in agriculture and are mainly used for planting sugarcane, corn, soybeans and cotton. According to a survey of more than 700 companies offering services with these aircraft in Brazil, the sector is expected to close 2018 with an estimated turnover of 400 million reais, a 30% increase on last year and double that of 2016. The data comes from Drone Show, an organizer of events focused on the sector. Almost half of this revenue comes from services provided for agriculture.
The take-off of the drone sector is a worldwide phenomenon. Research by the American bank Goldman Sachs, open to EXAME, predicts that by the end of 2020, the commercial segment of unmanned aircraft will form a global market worth 21 billion dollars. Of this total, almost six billion will come from agriculture, and there should be around 200,000 drones deployed in this sector alone. Worldwide, agriculture will be the second largest segment in financial terms for the drone market, behind infrastructure. But in Brazil, the positions are reversed.
The agricultural sector leads the ranking of importance for drone companies by a long shot. According to the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC), there are already 19,000 unmanned aerial vehicles registered in Brazil for professional use. It is estimated that agribusiness is responsible for between 40% and 50% of the total demand for vehicles and services. The figure, however, could be even higher. "Our survey only includes small companies that work with drones and don't operate in other areas, such as large agribusiness companies," says cartographic engineer Emerson Granemann, president of MundoGEO, the Brazilian company behind the Drone Show. "But large companies and service contractors, who already worked in the agricultural sector, are increasingly incorporating these drones into their solutions and work."
The main reason for this growing interest in drones is their low cost. According to José Olavo Vendramini, executive manager of French sugar manufacturer Tereos, it is cheaper, more practical and more efficient to use drones than other solutions that do the same job in the field. Tereos is the second largest sugar producer in the world, with annual revenues of 4.8 billion euros. In Brazil, it works with more than 1,000 sugarcane producers, who have around 300,000 hectares of plantations.
Almost half of this area is cultivated directly by the company. The aircraft are used to control weeds and pests, estimate the harvest and the volume of sugarcane bagasse generated and, above all, to check for planting faults, such as verifying that a plant has not sprouted at some point in the field. The company made its first flights with VANTS at the end of 2013. Since then, the fleet has been expanded and is now used to monitor most of the crops. The idea is to cover 100% of them in the future.
Vendramini estimates that just by monitoring planting failures, it is possible to save 25% on labor. Independent studies also indicate the benefits of using drones. Their use can reduce pest control costs by up to 60% and even increase productivity by 4%, according to British consultancy PwC. The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), for its part, has already identified cases of an increase of up to 30% in production, at least in the first year after the application of drones on the crop.
Drone manufacturer XMobots: reducing costs and increasing productivity | Disclosure
Integration of technologies
Of course, drones alone cannot guarantee this increase in production. For Daniela Coco, agribusiness specialist at PwC in Brazil, drones are accompanied by a series of other precision agriculture tools. "When we talk about drones, we also talk about the solutions they use, integration with artificial intelligence, data analysis, machine learning and others," says Coco. This technological package is what provides the big productivity gains. The drones take the pictures, but it's the computers and operators who interpret the data and guide the farmers. That's why the companies that make agricultural drones are not just equipment manufacturers, but solution and software providers - which increases the potential for business growth.
Data from PwC shows that the potential market for drone-related solutions in agribusiness is 32.4 billion dollars. This explains why Horus, a drone manufacturer based in Florianópolis, has developed its own online platform to analyze the information collected by cameras and sensors from customers' aircraft in the field. This is where 80% of the company's turnover comes from. Two other drone manufacturers from São Paulo, XMobots, from São Carlos (SP), and Elio Tecnologia, from São Paulo, do the same and offer their own data interpretation software. "We program whatever is necessary for the client, always seeking automation, but without dispensing with a human eye. This is what we call agricultural intelligence," says Luciano Araújo, president and founder of Elio.
Although the outlook for growth is positive, there are still obstacles that hinder the spread of drones in agriculture. Lack of skilled labor and poor compatibility between technologies (which hampers data analysis) are two of the main barriers cited by experts. The aircraft load limit stipulated by ANAC, 150 kilos for medium models, also hinders the adoption of drones for activities such as spraying, where they could replace manned aircraft.
The hardest thing to overcome, however, is resistance to change. "In agriculture, in general, it takes time for people to believe in the functionality of certain innovations," says Kalinka Castelo Branco, a researcher at the University of São Paulo who studies the use of VANTS. "The workforce hasn't evolved either, and people are afraid of being out of a job, of being replaced by a drone, when in fact the technology will help them do the job more quickly. Even in agriculture, you have to keep up to date with technological innovation."
Read the full article in Exame
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