Dhanuka eyes spraying biz through drones

Nagpur: Agrochemicals company Dhanuka Agritech, which has recently acquired stake in a start-up making drones, plans to leverage its position after the government announced an SOP to allow the usage of

drones

in crop spraying.

The SOP was issued a day ago, said the company’s chairman RG Agarwal at a press conference here on Thursday. The company will also be taking part in the Agrovision expo starting from Friday.

“Around four months ago we had taken a stake in a start-up IoTechworld Avigation, which makes drones by the name Agribot. With the current SOP the use of drones in agricultural operations is expected to increase,” said Agrawal.

Dhanuka is expecting to start the commercial services of drones to farmers by the next Kharif season. It would begin with commercial crops like horticulture, he said. This can include grapes and oranges.

The company would be using its network of distributors to reach out to farmers with its services. Farmers dealing with fruits and other horticulture crops would be preferred as they are fast to adopt new technologies, Agrawal said.

The company chairman said even as Dhanuka has advantage due to it its investment in the drone maker, other companies are expected to join the race soon.

Drone operations is an emerging business in the farm sector and is expected to ease the job, covering maximum area.

This would also lead to the requirement of trained pilots to handle the drones. The pilots need to get an approval from the DGCA, Agrawal said.

With falling labour supply in farm sector, mechanization is expected to emerge as the solution, he said. Only the permitted pesticides would be sprayed through the service, Agrawal added.