There has been much buzz around innovations in the food industry lately: from lazy people getting their meals delivered weekly by mail to weirdos chugging white goo meant to replace actual meals and eating energy bars made with bugs. While it is difficult to foretell how long these crazy ideas (some seemingly more so than others, of course) will stick around \u2013 a common thread among these ideas is efficient consumption. Changing consumption behaviors alone, however, fails to fully address the rising demand for food. Smarter farming that leads to significantly higher crop yields is ultimate solution. Farmers of the modern age increasingly need to do more with less, and at the same time crops diseases, pests, and droughts remain the largest threats to crop yields. Real time monitoring and information collection therefore are crucial in responding to these threats in a timely and effective manner.<\/p>\n
PrecisionHawk, a company I came to know very well while working in VC, is a drone company that promises to help farmers gain insights into the wellbeing of their crops and livestock. The application of aerial surveillance in farming has long existed. However, the two traditional methods – satellite imagery and manned airplanes \u2013 are both uneconomical and often inaccurate. PrecisionHawk drones are light, low-flying, launch and forget UAV\u2019s (unmanned aerial vehicles) that can carry highly sensitive imaging sensors and capture data across enormous amount of landmass during a single flight. The images are then \u201cstitched\u201d together using software to create a high resolution 2D or 3D map containing several dimensions of data, which can then be used for further analysis. The data collected can be used for a wide variety of analysis \u2013 from simple visual inspection to yield forecasting. At a high level, the use cases fall into the following main categories, according to a recent PwC research report [excerpt<\/em>]:<\/p>\n In conclusion, the economic value from the industrial usage of drones is enormous \u2013 according to research by PwC, \u201cthe total addressable value of drone-powered solutions in all applicable industries is significant\u2014more than $127 billion\u2026 [and] among the most promising areas is agriculture, where drones offer the potential for addressing several major challenges.\u201d The World Bank projects that in the next 30 years, world population will reach approximately 9 billion, and that food consumption will nearly double. Adding to the severity of the issue, climate change is causing less predictable, and more extreme weather conditions that make the farmer\u2019s job even harder. Therefore, key stakeholders from farmers to regulatory agencies all need to embrace new methods and tactics to maintain and improve sustainable productivity \u2013 and drones are a critical part of the solution that bring much promise. [602 words]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There has been much buzz around innovations in the food industry lately: from lazy people getting their meals delivered weekly by mail to weirdos chugging white goo meant to replace actual meals and eating energy bars made with bugs. While […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2436,"featured_media":17836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[28,1911,1253],"class_list":["post-17825","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-agriculture-technology","category-drones"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/digitization-challenge-2016\/","yoast_head":"\n\n