Unleash the jets for precise spraying

In India, 477 different pesticides are allowed to be deployed using drones. The decision was made last year It is valid for two years. In the United States, the method has been used for quite some time. in Switzerland too. I Moldova is testing drones in agriculture with the help of funds from the United Nations Development Fund, the United Nations Development Program, and the European Union. With success.

The dose of pesticide can be reduced by 40 percent compared to spraying from jars. Water consumption drops from 200 to 10 liters per hectare. In addition, the tires do not run over any crops. The farm workers do not have to be exposed to the liquid droplets, as the neighbors do. In addition, the need for fossil fuels is reduced.

The drone fight appears to have been done so that the European Union can reach the target of halving the amount of chemicals used to control weeds and insects between 2020 and 2030.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. Within the European Union, drones are considered aviation, and spraying from aircraft is prohibited.

Germany is awarding grants to those who use drones in wildlife management, to rescue birds and deer away from harvesters

The no-fly zone is understood. Planes and helicopters move very little in the air, and a lot of pesticides splatter as they drift away in gusts of wind. But the drones fly 2-4 meters above the crops, and the effort is accurate.

Drones are already being used in European agriculture. Farmers detect insect and fungus attacks. Before harvesting, they seek out the animals—which are caught because they emit heat—to scare them off and avoid the slaughter of deer and birds.

In Germany, gamekeepers and farmers can apply Grants to drones with thermal imaging cameras. This year, they can get 60 percent of the cost, up to 4,000 euros, from the government.

But of course it is necessary to have a driver’s license, which is required within the European Union since 2021 for all drones weighing more than a quarter kilo.

Wildlife conservation is important. But reducing the use of chemicals, and reducing consumption of fossil fuels and water is more important, just as much within the EU as it is in the rest of the world.

The European Union is slowly changing its stance on genetically modified organisms and genetically modified crops. Within a month, the European Commission will present a proposal that will hopefully allow the use of crispr technology, the genetic scissors.

Attitudes toward using drones to control pests and plants in fields must change faster. According to today’s rules, it is possible to make national exceptions to the ban – but only in exceptional cases.

And what would that be? That all the locusts of Egypt came to Greece at once?

In the proposal now being finalized, exceptions should be made at the national level on a limited scale, if after bureaucratic processing it turns out that better methods are not available.

The sensible thing is to allow damage control from drones and be prepared to do the opposite if this method suddenly turns out to have more harmful effects than good.

The European Union speaks so beautifully that clean technology is the future. The future is already here, let it fly.