LONDON: Across the flat expanses of Lincolnshire’s fenlands, an unfamiliar hum hangs overhead.
Drones – more readily associated with modern battlefields – are sweeping across some of Britain’s most fertile farmland, scanning crops for the earliest signs of disease and stress. Below ground, a different technology is probing.
Radar adapted from systems originally developed to detect buried landmines and unexploded devices in Afghanistan is being used to peer beneath the soil.
Its target here is rather less dangerous: potatoes.
The equipment is part of a growing arsenal being trialled by Tesco Plc as Britain’s biggest grocer works with its partners to produce food more efficiently.
The gear is deployed at its Low Carbon Concept Farm near Boston, England, a 20-acre testing ground run in cooperation with vegetable suppliers and technology firms.
As extreme weather, from prolonged heat and drought to bouts of heavy rain, challenges Britain’s growers as never before, the project’s aim is to discover new methods to cut emissions, reduce the herbicides and water required, and make crops more resilient.
“When people think of farming, you don’t tend to think it’s this massive data-driven exercise,” said Vee Gururajan, chief executive officer of B-Hive Innovations, which is working on the drone technology in Lincolnshire.
“With the right cameras, you can understand the defects that are happening while it’s happening.”
Across the farm, the drones can survey the fields of potatoes and broccoli more effectively than farmers and agronomists on foot. These aren’t typical consumer drones. Fitted with multispectral cameras, they’re able to capture wavelengths of light that reveal signs of crop distress before they become obvious on the ground.
Each drone is compact, weighing about 20 kg and can cover a couple of ha in 10 minutes or so from a height of about 20 feet.
The supermarket began testing the technology at the start of last year and in recent months the vegetables have made their way onto Tesco’s shelves, bearing stickers showing they came from the low-carbon farm.
The technology comes at a cost. Each drone carries equipment worth more than £20,000 (US$26,900), which includes £15,000 for the specialised camera alone. The aircraft itself costs roughly £7,000, according to Gururajan.
Still, the sophisticated imaging allows farmers to examine crops in greater detail than conventional aerial photography, helping to boost marketable yields and in turn offset some of the costs, he added.
Tesco and its suppliers are footing the bill for the equipment. The grocer is currently leasing seven fields and a visitors’ centre from a local farmer, who has previously worked on sustainable farming.
The drones aren’t the only costly machinery at work. Across the farm, a potato harvester used by Tesco supplier Branston is equipped with cameras and sensors that count and size potatoes as they are lifted from the earth.
The gear maps the yields from individual sections of the field so farmers can compare the results with differences in soil and treatments.
“That’s about £900,000 worth of machinery just driving down the field,” said Andy Blair, field technology manager at Branston.
The harvester will only be used for about six weeks of the year.
“It’s the type of modern technology that we need to be efficient.”
There is a certain symmetry to the deployment of the technology in the fens.
Much of the landscape was once marshland, made productive over centuries through an elaborate man-made system of drainage channels, embankments and pumps. Now, as farmers confront fresh challenges presented by more volatile weather along with rising costs for fuel and fertiliser, technology is again being used to get more from the land.
Across Britain, the use of drones in agriculture has been accelerating over the past five years, according to Andrew Watson, senior lecturer in agronomy at Harper Adams University. — Bloomberg
