Milling & Baking News - January 3, 2017 - 26

Education and Research X

Canadian ag drone data firm
to court U.S. farmers
RED RIVER VALLEY, MAN. - A
high-tech gizmo that looks like a
miniature UFO buzzing low over
cultivated fields, gathering useful information about water drainage, crop
yields and plant health, and sending the data to a computer screen
for analysis: such is the agricultural
drone, a seductive, relatively new entry in the arsenal of 21st century precision farming.
The hype surrounding these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS) has
been impressive.
"Drones set to give global farming
a makeover," said a December 2015

as they chase profits at a time of low
crop prices.
"It's not about a new fad; it's about
finding real problems and solving
them," said Scott Hiebert, chief executive officer of Green Aero Tech in
Red River Valley.
Story of a start-up
Following is the story of how he developed his start-up, a private company based in Canada that provides
data collected by drones to farmers in
North America.
"We have worked all across Canada," he said. "And now we are moving

Green Aero Tech's drone-powered data gathering has been focused on drainage issues.

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26 / January 3, 2017 XMilling & Baking News

headline in the United Kingdom's
Guardian newspaper.
"Farmers are demanding more
technology to help boost yields amid
low crop prices," said a story from
Bloomberg in late August. In the MIT
Technology Review, the market for
drones in agriculture recently was estimated at $32.4 billion. Drones were
cited as "part of the solution" for
feeding a world population estimated
at nine billion in 2050.
The reality of farming with the aid
of drones, though, may be a bit more
complicated, involving investments
of time and money as well as requiring continued development of technical expertise. Drones may break and
crash, and the software needed to
interpret their data may cost thousands of dollars and require extensive
training.
Yet growing demand for better information about all aspects of agriculture keeps interest high in these small
flying machines outfitted with cameras. A flurry of vendors and service
providers are moving fast to capitalize on farmers' needs for quality data

into the States as far away as Florida."
His expansion, though, didn't materialize before he paid his dues by
wrestling with the best way for his
company to move forward, a path
that has included its share of rough
terrain.
Mr. Hiebert started out by testing
different models that might be sold
to producers. But his business model
evolved to where he operates drones
for customers and processes the data
for about $4 to $10 an acre because
he thinks many producers will conclude that investing in drones to fly
on their land is a capital investment
they shouldn't undertake.
He is quick to point out that the
mantra in the marketplace that a
drone doesn't need to cost much more
than $1,000 is mostly not true for farmers: the models that do best in the ag
arena cost much more than that.
"The average consumer drone -
yes - it costs about $1,000. But the
ones we have cost anywhere from
$25,000 to a $100-plus thousand dollars," he told Milling & Baking News.
He also discovered that training to
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Milling & Baking News - January 3, 2017

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