The processing of agricultural crops using unmanned aerial vehicles is the most promising direction in the Ukrainian agricultural machinery industry, the Astarta agricultural holding has begun experimental implementation of this type of aviation this year, CEO of AgriChain, which is part of Astarta, Natalia Bohacheva has said.
“Drones are the most promising direction in Ukraine today. We use the drone scouting. These are video inspections and panoramic images of fields at different heights, at different angles with satellite monitoring,” she told Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the Ukraine CFO Forum in Kyiv held last week.
According to her, drones are most effective in assessing the state of crops and promptly responding to emerging risks. In addition, this aircraft technology allows pre-harvest drying of grain crops with greater efficiency than using wheeled vehicles. This is especially pronounced during desiccation of rapeseed, which can be significantly damaged by the bottom of the vehicles processing it.
Bohacheva said that pilot schemes for processing crops with drones were introduced at a number of enterprises of the agricultural holding this year, mainly for rapeseed.
“I myself was a huge skeptic of drone treatments, especially in terms of refueling and charging, but the case with desiccation confirmed their effectiveness,” the head of AgriChain said.
AgriChain is a product company that develops solutions for the AgTech market, founded in 2016 by the Astarta agricultural holding.
According to the unified public register of legal entities and sole proprietors, 99.8% of the charter capital of Agri Chain LLC belongs to Astarta CEO Viktor Ivanchyk through Astarta-Kyiv LLC.
Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine.