How drones are playing a growing role in agriculture
Huawei recently invited me to a 5G Smart Farming Tour at Nussböckgut, about two hours drive from the Austrian capital, which is developing several programs to incorporate technology into farming, a subject close to my heart that I have written about on numerous occasions.
There is no reason why the pace of technological development should be faster in cities, especially when the countryside offers significant advantages, as I saw during my visit: the proactive family that runs Nussböckgut is working with the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, Linz City Hall, along with Huawei and Austria’s Dronetech has achieved significant increases in output.
The organic farm specializes in wine and asparagus, two high-margin products that more easily justify the investment in technology, and relies on 5G for the use of drones for a range of tasks, from managing areas prone to water stress to applying a range of treatments. In addition to practical demonstrations, we were able to get an idea of some of the interesting challenges, such as 5G coverage at altitude — the farm was operating with public 5G coverage, but at high operational altitudes, used to take infrared images of plots, it was sometimes somewhat more difficult, especially with Beyond Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS) missions.
