Ukraine purchased hundreds of drones for processing agricultural fields

In early August 2021, it became known about the supply of agricultural robots developed by the Chinese company XAG to Ukraine. 245 drones were purchased for $5 million. The project was implemented by the system integrator of unmanned solutions DroneUA.

According to the publication dev.ua with reference to the co-founder of the company DroneUA Valery Yakovenko, the cost of one drone is about $20 thousand. Each of them is designed to treat 5 thousand hectares during the season.

The XAG fleet of agricultural drones conducts urgent and timely operations to spray crops. This is especially true for sunflower fields, which occupy more than 20% of the arable land of Ukraine. XAGs are used for treatment with fungicides, which are sprayed with high accuracy from a 4-meter height above the fields along a pre-programmed trajectory.

Ukraine purchased hundreds of UAVs for processing agricultural fields

Drones can work on long-length cultures without damaging them. This creates huge opportunities for farmers and a high return on investment, "says co-founder DroneUA, who is XAG's official partner in Ukraine.

According to him, this approach will help to develop the unmanned equipment market in agriculture as quickly as possible, which is already growing by 400-500% annually. Yakovenko shared the data that as of the beginning of June 2021, the total number of concluded obligations for the treatment of agricultural areas reached 600 thousand hectares, and the total number of cultivated areas by drones from DroneUA in 2021 exceeds 1 million hectares.

The use of drones, according to Yakovenko's forecast, will increase the total yield at the country level by 4.5-6%, and this will affect the export potential of Ukrainian agribusiness. By mid-2021, the robotics market in agriculture is not even 1% occupied, he added.