The St. Petersburg Geoscan Group of Companies, the largest manufacturer of civil aviation drones in Russia, has decided to mass-produce agricultural drones. They are designed for “point” application (by pollination) of plant protection products to the desired areas of agricultural fields. Until now, such drones have practically not been produced in Russia, Aleksey Semenov, chairman of the board of the Geoscan Group of Companies, told RBC Petersburg.
Experts consider the Geoscan initiative to be promising, provided that the company can offer a product that is technically and price-competitive in relation to analogues, mainly Chinese ones.
Demand for agricultural drones
According to Semyonov, the company will finalize the technology for the production of such agricultural drones this year, in the fall it is planned to produce the first 10 devices, for which about 50 million rubles are allocated. investments, and next year the company intends to start mass production in the amount of several hundred devices per year. The exact volume of output will depend on demand (there are no restrictions on the volume of production) and on the solution of state regulation problems.
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According to Aleksey Semenov, agricultural producers have a great demand for such a service, since the experience of its application has shown high efficiency. Thus, Oleg Odinokih, General Director of Aerodin LLC, told Vedomosti that farmers and agricultural holdings, using drones, can save 3-4% of the crop, which are lost when using wheeled vehicles. “The speed of pollination saves entire crops, for example, the pest quickly swoops in, conventional equipment does not always have time. <…> In addition, drones are cheaper,” he said.
This technology has been used around the world for a long time. According to Aleksey Semenov, 20 years ago, Japanese agricultural producers were innovators, making great efforts to increase productivity on their dear land. They were followed after a while by the Chinese, then by the Indians, and the technology began to spread rapidly throughout the world.
In Russia, there is still no real market for agricultural drones due to severe administrative restrictions on the flights of unmanned aerial systems weighing more than 30 kg.
In Russia, there is still no real market for agricultural drones due to severe administrative restrictions on flights of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) weighing over 30 kg, which are needed for spraying pesticides. Until now, in agriculture, drones have only been used to monitor fields – tracking plant growth, the results of which were used by agricultural producers for precision farming – “point” application of fertilizers and pesticides, which significantly reduced their costs for these substances. For this, light drones (weighing less than 30 kg) were used, the state regulation of which is quite adequate. According to Aleksey Semenov, the market for such a service has already formed, several specialized companies operate on it (one of the largest is Bios Aero, operating in the Penza region), and monitoring annually covers millions of hectares of agricultural land.
