Soon, we may see drones replacing skilled labourers, who are
scarce, to spray fungicide to control ‘kole roga’ (fruit rot disease) in
arecanut plantations during the rainy season.
A team
of five engineers, that has floated a startup in Nidle village near
Dharmasthala in Dakshina Kannada district, is geared up for commercial
production of such drones by the end of next year.
“Its
working prototype will be launched in January next for all farmers to see,”
Avinash Rao, founder and CEO of ISP Agro Robotics Pvt. Ltd., told The
Hindu .
The
startup cell of the State Department of IT and BT recently sanctioned a corpus
of Rs. 50 lakh to this “idea to proof of concept project” as grant-in-aid.
Mr.
Rao, an automation and control specialist who quit his lucrative job in
Bengaluru to launch the startup, said the research and development of the
project began in 2008 and its field trial demonstration was under progress.
The prototype
was demonstrated to Mangaluru-based Arecanut and Research and Development
Foundation, under Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing
Cooperative Ltd., for suggestions. The modifications and trails will go on till
the common arecanut grower is convinced.
Acute
shortage
Manchi
Srinivasa Achar, president of the All-India Areca Growers’ Association, Puttur,
said thousands of growers have been facing acute shortage of skilled labourers
who can manually climb the palms for spraying fungicide (mixture of copper
sulphate and quick lime) on areca bunches. Arecanut palm-climbing devices
developed on trial basis by individuals are yet to convince the farmers on
safety of the climber and hence have not become popular.
Ramesh
Kaintaje, an arecanut grower, said as the palms become slippery when it rains
and skilled labourers find it difficult to climb them and have to wait a long
time for the palms to dry. Hence, it takes a long time to complete spraying.
Even if skilled labourers work for an hour a day, a grower would have to make
the full payment of Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 1,500 a day.
On
certain occasions, small and marginal farmers have to spend more than Rs. 5,000
as wage for spraying fungicide on an acre. The wages have gone up because of
labour shortage.
Mr.
Rao, who comes from a family of areca growers, said many drones could be used
in one plantation to complete the spraying at the earliest.
Source: THE HINDU-31st July,2017
