KODIANG, April 1 — The Muda Agricultural Development Authority (Mada) has become the first in the country to carry out commercial pesticide spraying using drone on 2,000 hectares of padi in the Mada NKEA EPP 10 Padi Estate Project for the 1/2017 season which begins this month.
Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek said this was the first time the technology was used commercially on padi farms in the country.
“Agriculture drone is a new pesticide spraying alternative to the traditional method for padi farmers,” he told reporters after a padi farm visit programme in Padang Sera here today.
Ahmad Shabery said Mada farmers received the technology positively and fully supported the move to use drone for pesticide spraying in their padi farms after seeing a drone demonstration conducted at Mada Area Farmers Organisation (PPK).
He said the drone service was provided by a subsidiary of MADACorp Sdn Bhd as well as the PPK and it did not involve any allocation from the federal government.
According to him, the usage of drones gave better control of pests if spraying was conducted according to schedule and the spray operation was more precise, faster and more economical.
“Even though the cost of spraying is almost the same as the traditional method, drone takes only 20 per cent of the time to complete the job,” he said.
He said the cost could be lower as drone spraying was more efficient having used only 70 per cent of the pesticide quantity compared to traditional method.
It was another effort of the government to modernise the agriculture sector to attract more young people with technology and automation, he added. — Bernama
