BAN MAI, Thailand: As a child, Manit Boonkhiew watched his grandparents plough their rice farm near Bangkok with water buffaloes, and harvest by hand. His parents switched to tractors and threshers, while he now uses a zippy drone to spray pesticide in his field.
Manit, who grows rice, orchids and fruit trees on about 40 acres (16 hectares) of land in Ban Mai, is part of a community enterprise that recently acquired a drone under a Thai government programme to digitise agriculture.
Drones to plant seeds, and spray pesticide and fertilisers are growing in popularity in the South-East Asian country as it grapples with a labour shortage that worsened during the coronavirus pandemic, with restrictions on movement of workers.
“Labour is the biggest challenge for us – it’s hard to get, and it’s expensive,” said Manit, 56, a leader of the Ban Mai Community Rice Centre farm that comprises 57 members with nearly 400 acres of land.
“With the drone, we not only save money on labour, we can also be more precise. It’s faster and safer, as we are not exposed to the chemicals, and it can help us deal with climate-change impacts such as less rain more easily,” he said.
The Ban Mai community is part of a wider transformation of agriculture in Asia Pacific, where artificial intelligence (AI) and big data are powering smartphones, robots and drones to improve farming techniques, boost crop yields and incomes.
The trend towards data-based precision agriculture and other digital tools is being driven by demographic changes, technological advances and climate change, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
